


Ivan Locke: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.

by TheAstronomer



Category: Locke (2013)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Being welsh, Death of a pet, Discussion of Abortion, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Leeks, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, Recreational Drug Use, Rough Sex, Sheep, Spanking, Tattoos, Tom Hardy - Freeform, Unplanned Pregnancy, Violence, Vomiting, failed contraception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-09-01 09:22:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16762378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAstronomer/pseuds/TheAstronomer
Summary: The story of how Ivan Locke and future wife/ex-wife, Kat, got together in Birmingham in the late 1990s. This fic is set previously to the storyline depicted in the Tom Hardy film Locke, before it all went wrong (or more wrong) for Ivan Locke. Inspired by that excellent film and by Wysi's amazing fic, go and read it! Written after a request from her for some "Young Ivan" fic. I don't know how many hours we have spent talking about Ivan Locke but I know there will be more to come. <3 Wysi





	1. Nightclubs, Phone Calls & Disappointment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wysiwygot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wysiwygot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Locke: The Best Man in England](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14428389) by [wysiwygot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wysiwygot/pseuds/wysiwygot). 



Birmingham, Autumn 1997.

  
Ivan Locke had somehow found himself in a piss-soaked phonebox outside The Dome, Birmingham’s ‘premiere’ nightclub on a rain lashed night in late September. He was rarely persuaded into clubs these days, preferring to frequent pubs instead where he could drink pints of strong lager, slowly getting more inebriated as he lurked in his natural habitat of dark corners. It was work mates who had strong-armed him into reluctantly attending tonight. Danny’s cousin’s mate’s boyfriend was a bouncer on the door and could get them all in half price. _Or something_. Ivan couldn't remember the exact connections which led to them all being here. It was always a bit like that on the building site he was working on; a complicated mafia-like web of nepotism when it came to social occasions. Either way, Ivan was miserable so he’d snuck out. Besides, he’d been thinking about her all night. Kat. The girl he’d met only a few days ago and now, here he was in a reeking phonebox at 1am clutching her telephone number in his fist. It was a matter of deep irritation to Ivan that he couldn’t afford a mobile phone yet.

Ivan was drunk, absolutely wankered in fact, having sunk around six pints of overpriced lager in the hellhole he had just escaped from. He hadn’t told his mates he was going, just back-doored it while they were all raving on the dancefloor, off their tits on E. Earlier in the night, Limmy had tried his best to persuade Ivan to take a tab, even half of one, but Ivan had demurred, scowling over the rim of his pint. Hardly anyone in there was drinking, or if they were, it was alcopops; the recent craze for potent alcoholic lemonade had left Ivan bemused. It tasted like shit and girls drank it with straws.

“C’mon Ivan, just try a Molly, it makes everything just … fucking amazing, mate. You love everyone, music sounds amazing, colours are brighter … yeah! This tune is fucking epic!”

Limmy paused to nod his head to the rave music which was reverberating throughout the very fabric of the building, a deep pulse of hedonism fuelling what seemed to Ivan to be actual thousands of people, all moving as one under strobing lights. Ivan ran his eye over Limmy’s outfit: the tie-dye neon t-shirt, the low-slung baggy jeans; screwing his nose up in particular over the dayglo necklaces and bracelets slung round his neck and encircling his wrists. He also had some kind of headband on, his sweaty hair sticking up in spikes around it. Ivan shook his head, and took a sip of his tepid lager.

“Nah, mate. You’re ok. I’ll stick to lager.”

Limmy was a brickie on the building site Ivan was working on, his usual attire being dusty overalls and thick boots, much the same as Ivan, who was currently dressed in a somewhat utilitarian navy hoody and bog-standard jeans. Ivan glanced at his own trainers, the orange neon laces he had painstakingly woven into them making him wince internally at his own half-baked effort at fashion. _Still, it could be worse_ , mused Ivan, as a lad with neon yellow hair, a rainbow crop top, and sucking on a baby’s dummy wandered past, his arms semaphoring around in some kind of complicated dance move. Ivan was a long way from Merthyr Tydfil.

“Jesus, Ivan, don’t be such an old man. I thought you liked a bit of … mind alteration,” sang Limmy as he waved his arms about. ‘It’s just … epic, man!”

_It makes people talk utter shite and look like wankers_ , added Ivan in his head, noting Limmy’s red sweating face and huge pupils.

Ivan didn’t even smoke weed these days, he’d left all that stuff behind in Merthyr Tydfil, along with his lack of direction and his stupid nickname, Weasel. Ivan was going places now, things were on the up for him, he was convinced of it. Sure, he used to ingest enough gange to fell an elephant, and had several years when most of his communication was through the medium of grunts, but that was then, and more particularly, _there. Merthyr Tydfil - the biggest shithole in Wales_. He might only be a labourer now, hired muscle basically, but he didn’t plan on staying that way for long.

“Ayyyyyyy sheepshagger!” came the loud and intensely irritating Brummy tones of Kong, as he launched himself at Ivan, pulling him into an unwanted bear hug and spilling his pint. “Where’s your leek? You ate it all yourself again?”

Kong, so named because his surname was King and he was tall with muscles stacked on top of one another, worked with Ivan; also a labourer. Kong was the workplace joker - there was always one - who liked what he called ‘banter’, mercilessly taking the piss out of Ivan for being Welsh, mainly – an endless procession of quips about copulating with sheep and eating leeks which had stopped being even vaguely funny at least three months ago.

“Check it out, Ivan,”continued Kong, theatrically pointing to a girl who was standing nearby with a gaggle of her friends, his eyebrows waggling suggestively. “I think Charlene over there would like to bang your brains out, mate.”

_God, Kong was a twat. Why were his mates all twats_?

Ivan glanced at the girl, who wiggled her fingertips at him – yes, she was the one who had approached him earlier in the evening. Long blonde hair pulled into two sleek, tight plaits, a snug aqua satin crop top which highlighted both her high, full breasts and her taut stomach – the same stomach which had a large purple jewel nestling in its pierced navel. Her long, wide trousers which clung low on her hips appeared to have every conceivable colour of the rainbow in them and rippled as she walked.

She had sauntered up to Ivan where he lurked at the end of the bar earlier in that evening, her head tipped to the side as she squinted at him. Ivan had been doing his best to be completely invisible and it had almost worked.

“Ooh are you a model?” she chirped at him. Well, there was an opener. Wasn’t it usually blokes who came out with that line?

“What?”mumbled Ivan, making only the briefest of eye contact. “No.”

“You could be. You could be a model. Those lips!” she lurched a little closer to him and Ivan felt himself shrinking back. Her pupils were huge and she chugged water from a bottle.

“Wow, you are beautiful, you know? Kind of ... vulnerable looking.” She smiled, showing both rows of teeth.

“Look, I’m not...”

“What’s your name? I’m Charlene.”

She wriggled into a seat next to him, leaning her shoulder and upper arm against his.

“Ivan.”

“Ivor? Like Ivor the Engine!?”

Ivan ground his teeth. He just couldn’t be arsed with this.

“Nooo... My name is Ivan,”he said slowly, suddenly and shamefully aware of just how fucking _welsh_ he sounded.

“Oh you’re Welsh! I hear that accent now. Sexy.”

Was she deaf as well as stupid? But then her mouth was at his ear.

“We can fuck, if you like. There’s an alley nearby. Have you ever done it on E? Amazing, every touch feels, like … amazing.”

“Amazing, yeah,” repeated Ivan, dully. “But no. Thanks. I’m leaving soon.”

“Mmm well OK, your loss.”

“I’m sure,”said Ivan, twisting his head away from her lips and taking another sip from his pint. When he looked back she was gone.

Now, seeing Charlene again, with Kong trying to play muscle-bound matchmaker, was the decider - Ivan was out of there at the next possible opportunity. And although he’d shrunken into himself like a snail at Charlene’s attentions, the feel of her breath on his ear had ignited another memory of Kat. Kat, who'd also leaned in and whispered into his ear.

“It's Katrina, Katrina Enid actually,” she'd said in response to Ivan's, to him, boring and predictable question about her name abbreviation. “But don’t tell anyone.” And then she'd laughed, a real, throaty chuckle, which had resonated, quite suddenly and most definitely, deep in Ivan’s balls.

Ivan swayed slightly in the phone box, as he pinned the crumpled piece of paper to the wall of the booth with his forefinger, willing himself to focus on the scrawled number. He'd had to sidestep around a pool of vomit on the pavement outside to get into the cramped space. He glanced at the puke in disgust. Ivan himself was never sick when he drank – it was a matter of strange pride to him that he could hold his alcohol. Not even when he was hungover. He’d come into work many times on a Monday morning to various workmates on site puking into piles of rubble or barricaded in the portaloos throwing up after last minute drinking sessions on a Sunday night. The streets of Birmingham, like any UK city or town, were littered with ‘pavement pizzas’ of vomit by the early hours of Sunday morning. Ivan had a stronger stomach than that.

He closed his eyes momentarily as he brought Kat's face into his mind's eye again. He wanted to picture her before he dialled the number. He laid his head against the cool glass of the phonebox’s door and cast his mind back to Tuesday evening in The Arthur Robinson, a cheap chain pub which attracted cash-strapped students and hardened local drinkers alike with its cut-price booze. Ivan had noticed her slanted, cat-like, pale blue eyes first, sharp and observant. And then her mouth – it was really quite obscene – full, wide lips, the top lip particularly long and expressive. It was her mouth that imbibed her face with a real individuality, mischievousness even. Long, un-styled hair that Ivan struggled to fully recall the colour of – but dark, definitely - brown with golden highlights to it perhaps. He hadn't been able to get a real sense of her body at first, she’d been dressed pretty casually in baggy jeans with a plain white t-shirt tucked in, the belt pulled tight around a small waist. But there was a litheness to the way she moved and he’d surreptitiously eyed the way her breasts shifted against the material of her shirt. Ivan had both an eye for detail and an excellent memory.

But it wasn’t just those physical things about Kat; her face, her body, how she moved – there was something else there. Their paths had overlapped a few times before they’d actually spoken. Ivan knew she was a student, had seen her around his neighbourhood. He lived in a small rented flat in the overwhelmingly student area of Perry Barr, and which was simultaneously one of the roughest areas of Birmingham. He told himself it was still better than Merthyr Tydfil and at least his compact flat, only a tiny bedroom away from being a studio flat really, was clean, ordered and most importantly, _his own space_. He could have rented a bigger room in a shared house but Ivan preferred his own company much of the time and certainly when he had finished work for the day.

There were several reasons for Ivan to cringe at his first meeting with Kat. They were all flooding back to him now, in a phonebox in the early hours of Sunday morning. Firstly, the fact that he, Kong and Limmy – OK, Kong and Limmy mainly, had approached the group of girls in the pub based on no other fact than Kong had had a dirty stopout with one of them and wanted to try his luck again. Two-night stands were Kong’s speciality as he claimed it meant he usually got his breakfast cooked for him the second time round. Ivan often found himself in these awkward situations around his lairy workmates.

“You two!” Kong had hissed out of the corner of his mouth at Ivan and Limmy, as they made their way across the busy pub to three girls chatting in a corner. “Wing man duties!”

This felt like a regular occurrence for Ivan. Wing man for Kong; keeping the friend occupied while Kong turned on his Brummy charm for whichever girl he had selected to be the recipient. It was miserable. Invariably, Ivan had no real interest in the girl he was assigned to and he could see their attention visibly wandering from him as he grunted out one-word answers. Ivan hadn’t taken notice of any women since back in Merthyr Tydfil and the less said about his behaviour back then, the better. He was all work and no play these days rather than the other way round and was well acquainted with his own fist and a box of tissues (the latter kept neatly in a drawer beside his bed).

As it was, Ivan couldn’t quite remember what the first thing he said to Kat was. Something banal about how he'd seen her around maybe. She might even have approached him first as he shuffled his feet uncomfortably nearby, taking gulps of his pint. He was very close to being three sheets to the wind by then anyway – sometimes getting pissed was the best way to deal with being around Kong and Limmy. Limmy had no such qualms and had dived straight into his duties, arm round the third girl, breathing beery fumes into her face.

Of the initial part of their meeting, Ivan did remember Kat leaning close to him to be heard over the jukebox, the fresh scent which emanated from her, her hair brushing his cheek. The way she listened intently to anything he said – _what the fuck_ did _he say_?! (It couldn’t have been too bad over all because here he was with her telephone number.) She didn’t comment on his accent either, the way most people did. There was an energy about her, a lightness somehow – everything that he was not. He found himself staring at the hollow at the base of her throat where it peeped above the collar of her t-shirt when the intensity of eye contact became too much for him.

Then somehow, they had found themselves outside the pub, perched on the heavy wooden chairs of the empty beer garden. It was cold for September and had been raining. It rained a lot in Birmingham. Kat had made a comment about getting a wet patch on her jeans from sitting on the chair and was now leaning against a table instead. Ivan’s mind felt dull and slow, and he also felt like he was now only capable of staring dumbly at this bright, vivacious girl who was talking about her studies, rather than actively conversing with her. _Fuck, he’d lost the thread of the conversation now!_

“... so it’s not the most exciting subject to study but I’ll hopefully get a job at the end of it. What about you, Ivan? You a workmate of Kong’s? Helen told me all about him.” Here she paused and rolled her eyes.

“Ah, yeah. Yeah, I work with him. He’s a, well, a bit of a tosser really. I would tell your friend to steer clear.” Ivan shifted in the slatted wooden seat, the arse of his own jeans soaked through now and the cold air starting to sharpen up his mind a little.

“Don’t worry about Helen, she likes a bit of rough... she can handle it,” said Kat _. A bit of rough._ Is that what Ivan was too? Some slow-witted caveman who lugged rocks around for a living. _Well, yes, yes it is, for now_. He felt something like hackles rise on the back of his neck. Something prickling at his pride.

“I won’t be a labourer forever. That is not my intention. I have plans about how to progress.” It sounded stiff and pompous even to Ivan himself. He rubbed the back of his head and screwed his face up. This was torture. “I mean, I want to get more skilled...”

He looked around and realised he’d left his pint in the pub. He almost wished he had a joint right now. Just something to do with his hands. He was fucking it up with this girl, and for the first time in a long while, he _cared_. He wanted to impress her, for her to like him, to see something in him, something of worth. Miraculously, she was nodding her head and smiling at him encouragingly.

“That’s great... really great.” And when she said it, it felt like it was, not just the hard, bitter slog it was actually turning out to be. Ivan turned to her fully and smiled back. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had smiled like that, had wanted to smile like that; he’d been starting to think something was wrong with him, something which leached happiness away from him like some kind of drain or black hole. The dark rain cloud which followed Ivan Locke around.

“I think so,” said Ivan. “I can work hard. And I will get there.”

And then the second miracle of the night occurred. Kat climbed onto his lap, facing him, her legs pressed either side of his thighs and took his face in her hands.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for about the last half an hour,” she murmured. Then she put her lips on his, slowly and deliberately; brushing them gently with her own, while her soft fingers caressed behind his ears, her thumbs rubbing the sides of his neck. Ivan had not realised how touch-starved he had been until the moment this beautiful girl moved herself into his orbit, and his senses simply burst into life. The flicker of her tongue across his slightly parted lips was enough for him to surge forward and clasp her to him, his mouth opening fully to hers with a groan he didn’t even recognise as himself. He had not kissed like this in a long time, not had a girl’s body on his like this, her shoulder blades moving under his hands, and then her supple waist, now her hips, where he rubbed his thumbs over the sharp bones of her pelvis, yanking her even closer to him. She was also giving little moans and grunts and Ivan felt himself start to get hard. Soon he was grinding his crotch up into hers in the most enthusiastic session of dry humping he’d had since he was fifteen. He broke away from her mouth, keeping his hands clamped around her buttocks as he rubbed himself hard against her.

“Fuck, Kat. You are... amazing. Can we...?”

“Ah Ivan,” she panted. “I don’t think so, no. I’m not really in to one night stands...”

“It wouldn’t be like that... we can go out, too. I want to... get to know you better.”

Ivan cringed internally at how cliched it sounded. That he was saying this to her after they had explored one another's tonsils with their tongues, not to mention the frantic grinding, which had now slowed to a more gentle rub against one another as they spoke. But it was true, every word of it. He wanted to get to know her properly, and for her to know him. There was that low, throaty laugh again. Then Kat was opening her denim jacket up and fishing out a pen and a scrap of paper. She peeled herself away from him and it was all Ivan could do not to cling to her like a limpet, her warmth and closeness already replaced by the chilly air.

“Tell you what, here’s my number. Give me a call and we can sort something out, yeah?”

Ivan had thought of nothing else since but as each day had passed, the voice of doubt in his head had grown louder. The voice which was his and yet not his, threaded through with the tones of the man Ivan chose not to think of. His father.

_She is too good for you. Slumming it with you, isn’t she?_

_She will have forgotten you._

_Who do you think you are, Ivan Locke?_

Ivan knocked his forehead off the glass three times, each thump a little harder than the last. He held the coins in his fingers, a 50p and a 20p, poised above the slot, took a deep breath, then finally fed them in before punching in the number.

It rang for a long time. A very long time. Ivan watched the money on the display slowly deplete.

“Hello?” Her voice, quiet and a little hoarse.

“’Ello... ‘S me.”

“Who is it?” Her voice was both sleepy and slightly clipped. Ivan closed one eye and looked at his watch: 1.45am. Not that late for a Saturday night, surely?

“Kat, ‘S me,’ he repeated, the words coming out slow and thick. _What the fuck was wrong with his voice!?_

“Who!?” Her voice was louder now, more irritated, and there was a clattering noise in the background. “Oh shit! Who is this?”

“Ivan.” He passed the receiver over to his other ear, made an effort to clear his mind from the fog of alcohol. “It's just me. Ivan.”

“Uh, oh.. Ivan. I was asleep. Ivan from the pub?”

“Yes, Ivan from the pub.” There was a short silence punctuated by a raucous group of girls passing the phonebox. One of them hammered on the door, leering in at Ivan, a kebab clutched in her hand.

“Are you in town?” Kat asked. “Why are you calling me from town?”

“I just ... I think you are very beautiful Kat. Katrina Enid. I would like to come and see you. Can I come and see you? Please.” Ivan spoke slowly and pronounced every word clearly, so she wouldn’t know how drunk he was.

“Are you drunk? You’re drunk.”

“I have had a drink, yes... maybe a few. I would like to see you. I would really like to feel you on me again, Kat.” Ivan’s hand wandered down to his crotch. _Would he really do this in a glass phone box in Birmingham city centre?_ Probably. He hadn't felt as horny since he was a teenager.

“OK. You call me up pissed in the middle of the night and .. what? Expect me to invite you over, right now? Someone I met once. I don’t even know your surname!”

Ivan sensed things were not exactly going as he planned. She was annoyed at him, didn’t even seem to fully remember who he was. But he could bring it back, he would make it right again and they could get back to that moment they'd shared, when it was only them in the whole world, or so it had felt to Ivan; just them and their lips and hands and bodies.

“It's Locke. My surname is Locke, Kat.”

“Ok, Ivan Locke. Fine. But you are not coming to my house right now.”

“Kat, I told you I wanted to get to know you better. I do. I really do. And you made me so hard. Because you are so very beautiful.”

Ivan frowned at his own reflection in the glass, his short hair sticking up in all directions from the dampness left by the rain. He ran a thumb over his lower lip, compelled as always when he felt unsure, to gnaw on the side of the nail. He was not entirely sure he was striking the right note with her. He was torn between extreme horniness and the desire to just be held by her. She had not hung up on him though.

“Oh phone sex now is it!?” Kat laughed. “You are something else, you know that? Go home, Ivan. Sleep it off.”

And then Ivan was left with the dialling tone ringing in his ear as Kat put the phone down on him. _Fuck._

“Fuck! You fucking... idiot!” Ivan slammed the receiver back in its cradle and shouldered his way out of the booth. The rain was now coming down in sheets and the walk to the taxi rank was long.

The twenty minute journey back to his flat in Perry Barr was an agony of rehashing the conversation he'd just had with her. It was not so much the humiliation Ivan felt but the knowledge that he’d blown it with her, well and truly, as he'd always known he would. There was a disgusting smell of takeaway food in the taxi, mixed with the air freshener which was hanging from the rear view mirror. Ivan felt bile rising in his throat and told himself it was the stench in the car rather than the bitter clench of disappointment in his guts. _You will not vomit, you fucking pussy_. Ivan opened the window of the passenger side of the front seat and gulped in fresh air. He still held Kat's telephone number, crushed into his fist. Ivan lifted his hand to the window and let the scrap of paper flutter out into the night.

“Good night out, mate?” asked the driver.

“Not really, no,” replied Ivan, damp and hunched inside his coat, hair now plastered to his head.

“Well, you win some, you lose some eh?”

* * *

  
The first thing Ivan did when he got home was turn on the shower. Despite it being 3am, and despite the fact the people in the flat below his had complained it was leaking into their bedroom. Ivan just wanted to wash the entire night away and if that process dripped water into their bedroom and onto to their stupid faces, he just didn’t give a fuck. He stood with his head under the hot water for several minutes, until he felt warm again. But a rage was building in him. A rage at his own stupidity, his ineptitude at securing something truly positive in his life, which was not breaking his back slogging on building sites day after day. Constantly getting knocked back for the more skilled jobs because Matty's brother's mate or whoever had been there longer or had lived in Birmingham all their life. And now this. Tossing it away with the classiest girl he had ever met by calling her up pissed and telling her she gave him a hard-on. _Not clever, Ivan._

Ivan roughly towelled himself dry and got into bed in his tiny bedroom. Another sudden flare of anger induced him to hurl his alarm clock across the room for it to splinter apart on the wall, leaving a gash in the plaster. It was exactly then that Ivan became suddenly and painfully aware that the combination of frustration and thwarted lust had had its usual effect on him, and his dick was hard against his stomach, demanding his attention. He had wanked every night since his encounter with Kat, embroidering the details of it, until his mind's eye had her bouncing on his cock, him sucking first one then the other of her nipples as her breasts rose and fell in time with their entirely imagined movement.

Ivan grasped his shaft roughly, drawing his fisted hand along it and groaning at how hard he was. Because she did make him hard, and now with her rejection, harder than ever. What was it about her which had created this need in him? Ivan kicked the covers off the bed impatiently. They were interfering with the movement of his hand and he intended to really go for it, bracing his heels against the mattress and angling his pelvis up into his hand, buttocks tight and slightly lifted. And there it was - her voice low in his ear, her hair against his skin. Ivan had never had much of an imagination but he had found when it came to masturbating over Kat, he was more than able to conjure something up. Normally Ivan relied on porn magazines, surreptitiously purchased at the local corner shop.

_Fuck me Ivan, I want you to, please fuck me now._

Ivan set up a rhythm, grunting softly as he drew his hand along his cock, quite slowly at first, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain it. The speed soon increased in line with the tightness of the grip he had on himself.

 _I want you deep inside me, Ivan. Harder_.

Ivan was panting now, driving his dick hard into his fist, eyes closed to take himself back to the beer garden of the shitty pub, with the weight of Kat on his lap, her hands on the nape of his neck, her tongue on the long, tight tendon which ran from his jaw to his shoulder, nipping and sucking her way along it, little groans of approval leaving her lips between their movements. Ivan pressed his other fist hard against his forehead, pushing his own head back into the pillow. He wanted nothing more than to feel Kat clenched around him, not his own fucking hand.

 _I am close. Don’t stop. Don't stop_.

Ivan gritted his teeth against the whine which threatened to leave his mouth as his balls tightened at his approaching orgasm. He had never handled himself so roughly but there was no stopping it now and when he came it was harsh; a delicious pain which had him spurting abruptly onto his stomach, his hand, the mattress, more and more leaving him in hot spatters, his breath coming in hoarse gasps.

“Fucking ... _hell_ ,” he ground out as the last spasm subsided. He lay back panting roughly and gradually a slow seep of calmness washed over him. The moment of peace and clarity he sometimes experienced after orgasm when his whole body sunk into a state of deep repose, and his mind freed itself from the constant strain of being Ivan Locke.

But equally, because he _was_ Ivan Locke this was nothing more than a fleeting moment and soon the engine of his mind had started up again. He would fix that dent in the wall he had made. He would also fix it with Kat. There was no question, he would make it right again. He had proven to himself over and over again that he was capable of changing things, remedying mistakes, especially since he had left Wales, and this was no different. He would not give up on her.

 _You, Ivan Locke,_ he told himself _, are quite literally a tosser, and you will fucking fix this mess_.


	2. Kat: Perry Barr, Scud Mags & Humiliation.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kat and Ivan meet up again. This time they want to do things right.

Kat Edwards was slumming it in Perry Barr, of that there was no doubt. The entire area reeked of old-time wealth gone bad. Maybe around a hundred and fifty years ago Perry Barr had been the place for the up and coming industrialists or jewellers of Birmingham to set up their new-wealth homes – nice big houses with room in the attic for a maid or two - but now the streets were a mish-mash of the same houses portioned up into student flats or bedsits for the poor bastards on benefits who couldn’t get housed anywhere else. There was an air of more than faded glamour, the once smart avenues with their lines of ancient oak trees or sprawling horse chestnuts now swirling with tides of rubbish; old mattresses piled up in driveways, takeaway cartons and empty beer cans gathered like tumbleweed in every corner and gutter. Pubs, takeaways and betting shops, the mainstays of the local population. The residents of poor elderly and young unemployed rubbed along uneasily with the influx of students, with occasional scuffles breaking out between gangs of local youths and cocky students who didn’t know when to leave it.

It was here that Kat had made her temporary home as she studied nutrition at Birmingham University, as much because it was an escape from the stifling boredom of her prim home town as anything else. In a house share with four other girls, Kat’s room was high up in the eaves of a once magnificent Edwardian house fallen on hard times; a leaking roof, a kitchen which hadn’t been updated since the 1970s and a family of foxes living in the garden. In this house, Kat experienced a series of firsts – cooking her own meals, washing her own clothes, vomiting into all three of the dilapidated toilets whilst drunk, with cooing housemates holding her hair and rubbing her back.

She was embracing the full student experience, that was for sure; mistakes made with alcohol and boys with names like Jamie, Tim or Ed who Kat would then have to avoid on the university campus afterwards, dodging round corners or darting down aisles in the library. Her university course was fine, undemanding in the main, and would lead Kat neatly towards a variety of jobs in which she could use her skills to help people better themselves. It was all planned out for her. She phoned her mum and step-dad faithfully every Sunday and visited back home in Wolverhampton every few months. Kat was a good daughter, a good student and a good friend.

So far so predictable. But then Kat met Ivan Locke.

Kat had seen him around. She’d noticed him. It was hard not to for a variety of reasons. Clearly not a student, she saw him regularly, stumping along past the parade of shops near Kat’s house; hoody up, thick, dirty boots on, and hands shoved deep in his pockets. Coupled with a face of quite breath-taking beauty, even if he was scowling most of the time. Kat couldn’t work out exactly where this vision lived, but knew it must be local. The neighbourhood was small enough to get to know the regular faces but rough enough to avoid making eye contact. Sometimes she would see him coming out of the pizza place, clutching a box the size of a table top. He was always dirty, a patina of dust coating his work overalls, sometimes even smears on his face like a chimney sweep. Once they’d been involved in a very British stand-off of trying to allow one another through the door of a shop first. There had been brief eye contact then, and a muttered “Sorry” from Ivan as he eventually stood aside with his arms held wide to let her pass.

“No problem,” Kat had said softly, and sidled past him.

So when they eventually met properly in The Arthur Robinson, the worst pub in Perry Barr, in Kat’s opinion, there was a recognition that helped ease the awkwardness. Because Ivan _was_ incredibly awkward, Kat realised very quickly. But his mates were not. Kat was familiar with guys like Kong and Limmy; been chatted up by their type in a hundred pubs and clubs in Birmingham. She’d actually come across Kong one Sunday morning emerging from her house mate Helen’s room. A muscular, over-grown child basically, who’d had the cheek to ask Kat to make him a cup of tea, lounging lankily in a chair in the kitchen, lop-sided smile plastered on his face, still wearing Saturday night's rumpled outfit. He was over-confident, trading on his muscles and traditional good looks but would never bother to make the effort to remember your name. An extreme contrast to the smallish figure of Ivan, who hung back, almost apologetically, as Kong and Limmy barrelled in like heat seeking missiles to where Kat, Helen and Suzy were standing in a quieter corner of the pub.

“Not your scene?” she'd said to Ivan, detaching herself from the others and gravitating to where Ivan stood with his pint, a strained expression on his face. Her two friends were engrossed in the attentions of Kong and Limmy.

“Ah no. Not these days.”

Not _these_ days? Maybe in the past then? Why did that statement make him sound like someone much older than he appeared - he must only be early twenties at a push.

“I think I recognise you. Or I’ve seen you around. In the pizza place mostly, you obviously like pizza? From Luigis?” She laughed. Maybe a little light teasing would work. She wanted to see him smile, he was so serious looking.

“Yes, pizza is my favourite food,” he said gravely and then some emotion flitted across his face – regret or embarrassment maybe. He shuffled from foot to foot, cleared his throat, visibly searching for something to say. Kat waited. He was really quite beautiful and it was hard not to be dazzled by his face – guarded hazel-green eyes beneath fine, arched eyebrows, a not entirely small, but straight, nose, and lips which Kat found her eyes wandered to most often; full, red lips she had never seen the like of on a man before but which suited him entirely, partly hidden in a light fuzz of hair around them and along his jaw. Then a glimpse of crooked teeth as he gnawed on the side his thumb. It was a face which gave everything away at times and nothing at others.

“I have seen you around too. I’m Ivan.” His voice was low, with an accent she couldn’t quite make out over the blare of the jukebox.

“Ivan. Ok.” She held out her hand and he stared at it for a moment before taking it into his own and shaking it with a confused look on his face. This guy had no idea about flirting. She just wanted to touch him, to make that first physical contact. And despite his obvious nerves, his hand was warm and dry, his grip firm. “I’m Kat.”

“Kat,” he repeated slowly, a slight frown between his eyes. “Short for...?”

She leaned into him. Just to experiment. He smelled good, a woody, herby kind of aroma...but also of booze. There was no mistaking it and she could see he was actually quite drunk. Those slow reactions, the woozy eyes. But unlike other drunk guys in pubs, it didn't seem to bring him out of himself.

“I’m Katrina Enid really. But don’t tell anyone.” She leaned in and spoke directly into his ear, her eyes on his face to watch his reaction; noting how his own eyes widened slightly, his head turning to her. She laughed then because she felt his interest peak. This diffident, beautiful boy looked at her and she felt powerful. She was going to have to be careful here.

When Kat finally persuaded him out into the beer garden, to perch on wet seats, away from the racket of the pub and the jukebox which had All Saints on repeat (that was Helen, now writhing against a delighted Kong to the tune of ‘Never Ever'), she found out a few more things about Ivan: he worked on a building site, he was Welsh, he lived on his own in a flat not far from Kat's place, and he was a little older than her. It took time and patience to get him to talk, a natural skill for Kat. She was the girl who every lost soul naturally gravitated to, rarely making it through a bus journey or a walk through the streets of Perry Barr without the local bag lady or beggar stopping her for a chat. _One of those faces_ , her mum always said. It wasn’t always welcome to Kat, that baring of random souls she seemed to attract, but with _this_ one it would be. A cryptic crossword to complete, a maze to get lost in. She might have been forgiven for thinking he was even a bit dim, but there were flashes of - if not intelligence - a prickly self-awareness. It was probably the alcohol slowing down his responses rather than stupidity, Kat told herself.

And then came Ivan's admission of his ambition. He would not stay a labourer. That was not in his plan at all. Kat suspected Ivan’s plan was meticulous and probably written down somewhere in capital letters and bullet points. Maybe stuck onto to his fridge door. But there was a determination and quiet confidence to his statement which touched Kat. He would be so easy to wound, so raw and open. Kat had never met anyone like him in her civil middle-class circles, where everyone had, or at least seemed to have, an unassailable armour of natural self-confidence which had never been a struggle to obtain or maintain.

She couldn’t fully recall how she'd ended up in Ivan’s lap. She was pretty drunk herself and when they’d emerged into the fresh, cold air of the beer garden, the effects of the vodka and cokes she'd been drinking had sent her head into a spin. But Ivan had smiled at her, right after she'd congratulated his plan to move on from working on building sites, and that smile had broken a seal in Kat with its sheer unguarded brilliance.

Ivan tasted of beer and a sweet, underlying tang of peppermint, maybe chewing gum or mint. Lips soft beyond the gentle scrape of his facial hair. His hands were surprisingly strong, gripping her arse to pull her closer in a way she would have struggled to break free from, had she wanted to. A delighted groan emanated from his throat which almost sent Kat into a frenzy. He was without doubt the best-looking boy she had ever hooked up with and she was enjoying every moment of having his firm body under hers; because she could feel now how wiry and muscular he was under that baggy hoody and jeans. Maybe Helen had a point with her penchant for tradesmen, this felt a million miles from Kat's polite snogging sessions with wan student boys from Cheshire or Berkshire.

It quickly became obvious Ivan was as into it as her as the ridge of his stiffening dick began nudging against the seam of her jeans’ crotch and Kat felt a swoop of pure lust surge down through her stomach straight to where Ivan had started to push his hardness up against her. Soon they had set up an insistent rhythm, grinding against one another as Kat caught the salty skin of his thick neck with her teeth, biting down on the meat of it in a way she had never done with any man. It would be so easy for her to slip herself over the threshold with him, to remove the barrier of their clothing and let things slide to their natural conclusion but Kat would not lose her virginity here, in a beer garden, in the shittiest pub in Birmingham...

So they’d stopped, reluctantly, and Kat had scribbled her telephone number on a piece of paper and hobbled back into the pub on wobbly kegs with a damp arse and even damper knickers. She had set him the challenge and the game was on. But then Ivan had fallen at the first hurdle with his eventual phone-call, in the middle of the night; a pissed-up, garbled confession of lust and interest in her _mind, for God's sake_. _What a cliché._ Kat had hung up on him eventually but she still waited … There was something there with this awkward Welsh bugger.

It had been two weeks since that incident when Kat once again bumped into Ivan in the local newsagent on a Sunday afternoon. The hunched figure at the magazine rack was recognisable to Kat mainly by his lips, visible from under a cap pulled low over his face, and with a hood drawn up over the top of that as extra coverage. Almost as though he was hiding... The low-slung baggy grey track suit bottoms were clean for once, as was the navy hoody, but it was Ivan alright. God, he looked rough, like one of the local lads who hung about in a gang, smoking outside the Bookies or filling the bus stop with the smell of weed. Slightly scary, in fact. Adrenaline and the memory of his smile and soft voice propelled her to him, to duck her head down and catch his eye, smile at him.

“Hi. Ivan.”

There was a flash of recognition and Kat became aware of him scrabbling to conceal something in his hand. _Oh my god_. It was a porn magazine. _A bloody porno!_

“Oh ... _shit_. Hello. Hello, Kat. I didn’t see you there. I’m sorry.”

There was a direct appeal in his eyes. _Please, please do not mention that I was looking at porn, I am so sorry._

“No, no you didn’t, did you? How are you?”

Kat decided she would not mention his predicament, but she did briefly think, _how many chances will I give this bloke, what is it that keeps me from walking away?_ But she couldn’t answer her own question and besides he was here, now, in front of her and the attraction she felt for him had sparked instantly back into life, knocking logic out of the equation. He was slowly turning deep red regardless of her being tight-lipped at catching him red-handed with a scud mag in his sweaty fist. He had dropped the magazine back into its slot and turned to her, his face the very picture of misery and embarrassment.

“I’m good, I’m good thanks. And you?”

Kat knew they would courteously side-step around one another forever unless she took control of this situation.

“I suppose I’ve been waiting for you to call me again. Properly this time.”

Ivan’s eyebrows shot up and he pushed his hood back, the flush of his cheeks starting to fade.

“You were waiting for...? I thought I had blown it? I knew I had. I lost your number too.”

People were sidling around them, clasping copies of their Sunday papers and packets of biscuits, as Kat and Ivan blocked the aisle, staring at each other.

“How about we start again? Let’s get a cup of tea?” suggested Kat.

So that was how they found themselves in one of the greasiest of greasy spoon cafés, next to Luigis the pizza place and across from the betting shop. Smart coffee shops had not yet reached Perry Barr, and "Maria's Caff" was the best it could offer for Kat to continue to suss out the reserved Welsh bloke across from her who had spent the last five minutes dunking his tea bag until the liquid was an almost treacly dark brown.

“Builders tea?” Kat nodded at the mug of tea Ivan was shovelling three teaspoons of sugar into. _Three!?_

“Ha, yeah. Maybe I’m a typical builder. Strong tea, weak will.”

Kat smiled at his self-deprecating joke, and he smiled back at her, visibly relaxing. It was a full time job, relaxing Ivan Locke, Kat was beginning to realise. Did she really want to apply for that position?

“You must get through a lot of sugar, I hope you’ve got a good dentist?” Kat smiled but she'd noticed his paleness, the smattering of spots on his forehead and the general air of bad nutrition about him, despite his almost unearthly atttractiveness; she was trained to see it after all. She watched him running his tongue over his uneven teeth self-consciously and felt bad at her silly comment. Again that feeling that he needed careful handling.

So Kat put on her best listening ears and wheedled more information out of Ivan Locke. That he was an only child, from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales – _the biggest fucking shithole in Wales, excuse my language, Kat_ – that he had ended up in Birmingham after a vague offer of a job and he couldn’t wait to take it up, get out of there and never go back. There was still a hint of shiftiness at his disclosure of any facts about himself and Ivan was also reluctant to talk about his parents, or friends he might have left behind in Wales. He very much wanted to concentrate on _now_ and _the future_. But he listened too. Listened to Kat’s own story of a close middle-class upbringing, slightly marred by her parents divorcing when Kat was little. But even then, her mum's second marriage had provided Kat and her sister with another little half sister, who they all doted on. Kat had a normal, happy childhood; something she often thought was boring. Most people liked a bit of angst, didn’t they? To pep things up? But not Ivan, apparently. He drank at the well of Kat's suburban childhood stories like a thirsty man gulping down cold, clear water.

She watched his eyes travel over her face as she talked and she in turn gazed at his own beautiful face as it opened up to her, strangely expressive for such a quiet man. But it was not such a surprise when he reached across the grubby table and rubbed his thumb down her cheek, nor that she closed her eyes at his touch and reached up to hold his hand against her face.

“Can I take you out, Kat? Properly, to a restaurant maybe?”

“Yeah, I would like that Ivan.”

It was dark when they left the cafe. He pressed her gently against the wall at the corner of her street and kissed her, deeply and thoroughly, his tongue stroking hers and his hand on the back of her neck, quite decorously, holding himself away from her. Kat could not help but reflect on the difference between their behaviour on this dim street corner, where their teeth clashed slightly when their mouths first met, and there was some awkwardness over where Ivan's arm went in relation to hers, to the strangely synchronised and entirely lustful session they had drunkenly enjoyed in the beer garden. Kat wondered what sex with Ivan would be like. She wondered what sex would be like full stop. She had never progressed beyond enthusiastic kissing and light fingering, in situations she had never regretted extricating herself from. There had never been anyone she wanted to push past that level with. Not until now. But this time, it was Ivan who stopped himself, as Kat's own hand was inching up his thick thigh, pulling away from her and looking into her eyes.

“Let’s do this properly, Kat. I will phone you and we'll sort a date out. I want to treat you as you should be treated.”

Kat felt herself exhale, made an effort to pull herself back into the moment, Ivan’s serious eyes on hers, waiting for a reply.

“Yes Ivan. We can do this properly.”


	3. Ivan:Dating, Fighting and Fucking.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kat and Ivan attempt a date. Eventual smut with a small amount of descriptive plot, y'know, my usual.
> 
> Thanks to Wysiwygot for tolerating my endless messages about this at all times of the day and night <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Bostin' Wench' - Birmingham slang for attractive woman. Really!

Ivan was quite proud of his flat, tiny as it was and situated within a block in which he had to run a gauntlet of weird neighbours in order to get to his front door. If he had actually allowed anyone to visit it, they might have commented it was somewhat impersonal, maybe. Nothing to mark it out as _his_ , unless his high-vis coat and hardhat could be counted as items which defined who he was. No family photos, no books or CDs, or pictures on the walls, just the basic, cheap furniture he rented it with. Ivan kept it tidy; parked his dirty work boots outside his front door, made his bed up daily and washed up the dishes. It was a haven to him, despite lacking the cosy qualities normally associated with such a homely concept. His own home back in Wales could never have been described as a haven for Ivan, despite being stuffed full of his mother’s trinkets and cat-themed soft furnishings; mainly, it was the dwelling place for her anxiety and disappointment, his frustration and boredom, and their bumpy, fractious relationship. _Why do you never visit, Ivan? I know you are busy, but I miss you._

There was only one mirror in Ivan's flat, in the small bathroom, with its annoying rattling extractor fan, and it was here that he stared critically at himself as he prepared for his date with Kat. He had fastidiously ironed one of the two shirts he owned, and buttoned it up over a t-shirt and his best pair of jeans. Ivan had concluded that Kat must have noticed his stupid teeth after her comment about him needing a dentist. He bared the offending crooked teeth at himself in the mirror and the results of a dental phobia and bad genes looked straight back at him. _Fuck it_. Ivan had already drank two cans of lager to imbibe himself with some dutch-courage, because truth be told, he was shitting himself. It felt like this was his final chance to get it right with Kat, to prove he was someone worth taking a risk on. He was not totally unable to recognise when a girl fancied him, and he saw some encouraging signs in her, but equally he knew he would have to work hard to obliterate her memory of him hiding the porn mag he‘d been poring over in the local shop. _You utter, utter twat._ The sheer, toe-curling humiliation of seeing her sharp eyes fall upon the copy of ‘Razzle’ he had been thumbing through in public like a social deviant once again coursed through his system. Ivan had been hungover and horny that afternoon in the newsagent – seeking out fresh material to add to the expanding porn collection stashed under his bed. _God, Kat must never find it._ Assuming she ever got as far as his bed. Unlikely now. 

He snapped off the light and pulled on a coat to go and meet Kat outside ‘G-Wu’ the single Chinese restaurant offered by Perry Barr, doubling up as a takeaway. It was times like this Ivan might have taken a little toot of cocaine, just for a boost, just to loosen his tongue a bit. But those days were over and Ivan had to present himself, unadulterated by illegal substances, to Kat and hope it was enough. Besides, there was always alcohol. 

It was strange how Kat seemed to look a little different every time Ivan saw her. Extra details he had missed. She was wearing a dress this time; black, slightly fitted with some kind of tiny floral pattern on it. But Ivan’s eyes were oddly drawn to her collarbones, a part of her not seen before, delicate and fragile looking. A silver chain draped around her neck only accentuated the frail shelf of her shoulders. She looked beautiful, and Ivan was again reminded of how well-bred she seemed, poised, self-contained – _classy_ was the inadequate word Ivan related to her most often. He had never known a girl like her, in any sense. 

They had greeted each other with a clumsy kiss, a peck on the cheek, which in Ivan’s case had misfired and he’d accidentally pressed his lips somewhere near her ear, his nose nudging her ear lobe. The scent of her again assailed his nostrils and he wasted no time in breathing her in. She’d laughed and ruffled the back of his hair, but her hand had lingered on his neck too as his hand also lingered around her waist, fingers giving a slight squeeze. 

‘Hi,’ she breathed, disentangling from him and taking a step back. 

‘Hello. How are you Kat? You look very lovely.’ 

He was doing ok so far. He took a deep breath in. She had red lipstick on and her hair was waved and loose. 

‘You too. A shirt! Nice.’ 

For a few moments they had just stared at one another again before Kat broke the spell with a move towards the door and a cheery: 

‘I’m starving! Let’s eat. I love Chinese food.’ 

They sat in an alcove at the back of the restaurant under an arbour festooned with plastic ivy and pink lanterns and Ivan tried very hard not to get the sauce from his noodles on his chin. They shared a bottle of overly sweet wine which they both agreed was disgusting but got through pretty quickly just the same. Ivan was grateful for the effects of the wine too. Not as effective as cocaine perhaps, but still helping to relax him – but then Kat was just as easy to talk to as before. He found he could tell her about his frustration at the slow progress he was making in his career aspirations. That it fucked him off that it was the likes of Limmy - who happened to be the gaffer’s son as well as the biggest party-animal waste of space ever to piss his privilege up against one of his own badly laid walls - it was that idiot who got the bricklaying apprenticeship, while Ivan continued his attempts to scramble his way up a greasy ladder unpaved with nepotism. Even though it was well known that it was Ivan who would notice if the line of a wall was out or if the foundations needed another half a foot depth dug into them. The cheeky bastard foreman at Sykes & Co, the building contractors he worked for, had even started bringing him in for an ‘Ivan-Check' – getting him to cast his eye over various stages of a build in case there was something the foreman had missed. But Ivan still couldn’t cop a break and move to an official role beyond labourer. 

“It doesn't seem fair, Ivan. Not at all.” Kat shook her head. 

“No, it fuc... certainly isn't.” _Did he sound bitter?_ He swallowed some more wine and smiled at Kat, who was deftly manoeuvring a prawn with her chopsticks. Of course she knew how to handle chopsticks while Ivan had to make do with a plebeian knife and fork. 

Ivan was careful with his words around Kat though, he tried not to swear as often and toned down his accent as much as he possibly could, something he had been practising for quite some time. The rough, thick Welsh accent Ivan had arrived in Birmingham with had been smoothed away quite considerably.   
  
“You’ll get there, I know you will. I think you’re a determined bugger. In a good way!” She laughed and took a sip of her own wine. The desire to touch her again flared in Ivan as he watched her lips against the rim of the glass and he surprised himself entirely by leaning forward suddenly and brushing a finger lightly over her bottom lip as she set the glass down on the table. 

“I like this lipstick … I think you are beautiful Kat.” He found that compliments about her fell easily from his lips. Maybe not the most original utterances but he meant them, totally. He was gratified to see her blush a little, her eyes dart away from him. 

“Thank you, Ivan. It’s nice of you to say.” 

“I’m not being nice. It’s just what I see.” 

As they finished their meal, Kat told Ivan about her year out, a year of travel she had undertaken before starting her university course. How she had visited so many countries, backpacking with friends: Thailand, India, Vietnam, and all the way to Australia. She spoke of it as something all her friends had done, a standard undertaking before settling down to several years of study and finally on to professional jobs – the well-trodden path of a million middle class students before her. Ivan was too embarrassed to tell her that his one experience of foreign travel had been a cheap package deal lad’s trip to Lanzarote when he was eighteen, most of which he could not recall due to being off his face on various substances throughout the two weeks he’d spent there. He also suspected that when Kat spoke of learning to drive, she would be horrified that Ivan had learned to drive in stolen cars, joyriding through the dark streets of Merthyr Tydfil before finally torching the cars on waste-ground and lighting a spliff from the flames. Well, it was a novel way to learn and Ivan was pretty adept at taking corners at speed as a result. He wondered how much of himself he would have to keep hidden – part of him was compelled to tell her everything, have her absolve him in some way. She was like a fresh sheet he could pull over the trash of his past, obliterating it. 

Ivan had insisted on paying for the meal, of course, and then they had walked on to a pub, neither of them wanting to end the night yet. He pulled her close to him as they walked, arm tight around her waist and though he desperately wanted to draw her into each dark doorway they passed and taste every part of her again, shut out the rest of the world with her body against his, he did not. _Not yet_ , something told him, _not yet_. 

This time, it was a quieter pub they headed to, at Ivan’s suggestion, more like an old man’s boozer which he sometimes went into to read the papers and drink a pint, much like, well, an old man. However, it was evident fairly quickly that the atmosphere was wholly different on a Saturday night than on the occasional Sunday afternoon when Ivan had visited it before. It was considerably busier than he had bargained for and he’d almost suggested they leave straight away it but Kat had already elbowed her way up to bar, insisting she would buy them both a drink. When they finally found a seat, after waiting for another couple to leave, and then pouncing on the table, most of Ivan’s drink had gone, he’d almost downed it. They huddled at the small round table, swimming in spilt beer and the soggy fag ends of half smoked cigarettes, unfortunately situated directly under the speaker for the jukebox. Chumbawamba’s ‘Tubthumping’, the ubiquitous Saturday night song of the last few weeks, blared out above them. 

“I fucking hate this song,” muttered Ivan, then louder, to Kat: “I didn’t think it would be so busy, maybe we can find somewhere else next?” 

“Yeah, maybe a good ide-” 

“AYYYYYYYYY SHEEPSHAGGER!” 

Ivan’s stomach plummeted to the filthy floor as Kong lurched drunkenly into view; and, shitting hell, he was absolutely hammered. What the fuck he was doing in a place like this was a mystery but Ivan had no time to reflect before Kong had crammed in between Kat and himself at the table. 

“And who’s this, Ivan? You man of mystery. Who’ve we got here then?” 

Kat did not wait for Ivan to introduce her. 

“I’m Kat. We’ve actually had the _pleasure_ of meeting already, Kong.” Ivan was surprised at the level of sarcasm in Kat’s voice. 

Kong blearily focussed on her, oblivious to her tone, squinting at her, before dropping a heavy arm around her shoulders. Ivan could feel his rage begin to shift up through the gears, smoothly and unstoppably. What came next would be no surprise. 

‘Have we now, my bostin’ wench,” he slurred. “Ivan having to take up with my sloppy seconds, is he? You seem a bit posh though, more my type than his. Ivan likes them rough, that’s what I heard.” He paused, head cocked towards the speaker like a dog, before punching the air and yelling out: “ _He drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink_.... fucking top tune!” 

_Fuck you, Chumbawamba,_ thought Ivan.

“Kong...” he began. 

“Kong? What, Kong? What do you want to say to me, mate? Tell me your story then.” Kong held his arms out wide to Ivan, shifted back in his chair, bristling with aggression. Ivan could see that Kong had tipped very far over the precipice of a sensible level of alcohol consumption, ready to both take and give offence with impunity. 

“You ain’t any better than me. We’re paid the same wage, yeah, Sheepshagger? P’robly better than you’d get back in fucking Pontypridd or Taff-land or wherever too, eh?” 

This was the furthest Kong had gone with Ivan; though it had always been lurking in his banter, this vitriol, the barbed, razor-edge behind the ‘jokes’. Kat shifted uncomfortably, looking at Ivan, real worry in her expression. She probably didn’t have to deal with scum like Kong, and why the fuck should she. Ivan stood up slowly. 

“Oh, standing up are we?” Kong also staggered to his feet and jabbed a finger in Ivan’s face. “ _You_. You’re just the same as me, Ivan.” 

And it was this, _this_ which tipped Ivan over the edge – that Kong dared to compare himself to Ivan. The heat which had been creeping up his spine finally erupted and he somehow found himself with a hand clamped onto the back of Kong’s neck, the other gripping the t-shirt at the small of his back and propelling him rapidly out of the pub. Kong was so inebriated and loose-limbed it was easy to manhandle him out of the swinging doors and into an alley at the side of the building. Here, he crushed Kong up against the wall, his arm twisted up behind his back as far as Ivan could push it and snarled into his ear: “I am _nothing_ like you, you fucking worthless _cunt._ Now fuck off before I crush your thick fucking head to powder, you _wanker.”_ Ivan punctuated his words with a sharp upwards yank on Kong’s arm, which had him squirming and yelping like the piece of shit he was. He could hear his own accent harden again, into the boy from Methyr who had learned the hard way how to handle himself in most situations. Finally, Ivan sent Kong hurtling to the ground with a hefty shove and stood over him, breathing hard. 

“Don’t you _ever_ fucking show me up like that again.” Ivan was struggling to bring his rage back down, all he wanted to do now was launch himself at Kong and kick the utter shit out of him. He began to walk towards the sprawled figure, fists clenched again. 

“You can’t take a joke, that’s your problem, mate. Always has been,” stuttered Kong, pushing himself into a sitting position against the wall. 

“Ivan?” came Kat’s uncertain voice from behind him. _Fuck! Kat._ He had left her in the pub, on her own. 

“It’s ok, Kat. Everything is fine. Kong just needed some air. To sober up, he can’t handle his drink very well.” 

“Can we go, Ivan. Please?” She hovered under the street lamp at the entrance to the alley. 

“Yes, Kat. Yes, of course.” 

With that, his anger started to dissipate and Ivan found he was able to turn away from the pathetic figure cowering on the wet ground, and bring himself back to the girl who held out her arm to him, to take him away from what he was about to do. _That_ was the old Ivan, that was him right there - slithering about in the dirt, off his face. He didn’t even need to fuck him up, it was already done. There was another opening for Ivan now and he would run through it without once looking back, without ever considering there was any other alternative. 

* * *

He was not sure which of them suggested first that Kat should come into Ivan’s flat. It was after he had apologised to her about Kong as they walked away from the pub, when they were both jittery and over-talkative. 

“You told me he was a tosser,” giggled Kat. “Not maybe quite how much of one. He should get some kind of award.” 

“He’s a loser, Kat. Simple as that. He thinks he’s better than me.” 

“You just … took him, like he was made of … plastic, or something. Straight out the door.” She gave another whoop of laughter. 

“I’m sorry you saw that. I really am.” 

“No, no, you can look after yourself. That’s fine, that’s … good, Ivan. Really.” 

It had started to rain again, heavily. They were almost at his flat, and then another few hundred yards or so on was Kat’s house. Ivan slowed and ducked under the porch at the main entrance. 

“I didn’t want the night to end like that... maybe you could come in and...” 

“This is your flat? Can I come in? Just until the rain stops. I don’t have an umbrella. I always lose them, almost as soon as I buy them.” 

Ivan looked a little closer at Kat - was she drunk? She had seemed exhilarated - excited almost - since they had left the alley. Her hair was starting to dampen and stick to her forehead, similar to his own as the rain started to really batter down, and she held her arms loosely around her own torso, shivering slightly. 

“Yeah, kind of cold here,” she said. 

“Oh god, yes, sorry. Of course you can. Let me just find my keys.” 

Ivan could not quite believe his eyes, that she was here in his flat already, hair in thick, wet tendrils which snaked down her neck and shoulders, shrugging out of her coat. 

“Well, it’s certainly very ... tidy. Have you ever been in the army, Ivan!? Looks like you’ve been trained?” 

Ivan frowned. She was joking of course and obviously liked teasing him, he would have to try and remember that and learn to react accordingly, instead of like the dim-witted twat he must appear to her at times. 

In truth, Ivan _had_ almost joined the army at one point. Through a fog of excessive weed smoking, poor exam results (no qualifications at all, in fact), and his mother’s shrill dismay, he had paid a desperate visit to the local army careers office in Merthyr Tydfil. The army had always done a brisk trade in recruiting disaffected young lads from Merthyr with nothing academic to show for their sporadic attendance at school and Ivan could easily have joined those ranks. There was something deeply appealing about being part of an organisation which would take him, teach him skills, give him a trade and instruct him how to be a man. How to be a man who looked after himself, could defend himself, be useful and yet also anonymous - _just one of the lads_ – all the things Ivan felt he could not be or do, had never received guidance on. 

Ivan’s father had been absent, almost entirely, throughout most of his childhood. Apart from fleeting and usually drunken appearances to beg his mother to take him back. Even as a child, Ivan could tell that his father’s interest was really directed at his mother, not him. It was his mother rather than him who Ivan Senior pleaded with, his mother he had clutched at while young Ivan watched silently from another room. The odd, sporadic birthday card might have filtered through, usually with the wrong age on it. Once, a soft toy bought after Ivan senior had found out his young son loved the film ET. A cheap, polyester toy, with a sagging neck and grotesque bulging blue plastic eyes. Yet Ivan had treasured it as a nine-year old. It was still there in his mother’s house along with other relics from his childhood. 

But in the event, Ivan hadn’t joined the army, he had got himself into other situations, and more crucially, his mum had got wind of it and laid on emotional blackmail so thick, it was like wading through mud to persuade her that no, he would not join up and get himself killed in Afghanistan. 

“No, never in the army,” Ivan said, moving to the sink to fill up the kettle. “Are you a tea or coffee drinker?” 

“Ivan, I’m a virgin,” Kat blurted out suddenly. 

Ivan froze, with his hand on the tap. Kat’s eyes were wide with horror at what she had just said. 

“Ah, ok.” 

“I just want you to know. So that you’re not, you know, disappointed. I don’t even know what I’m saying.” She sat down abruptly on a chair, with the towel Ivan had given her, and ran it over her hair, avoiding his eyes. 

“Kat, you are not here so that we...uh. There’s no pressure.” 

“No, I know. But I want you to know anyway.” 

Ivan processed this information slowly; not entirely sure of his own reaction yet. He had generally been the less experienced partner in his own past sexual encounters – although this had its advantages in that he had received a thorough tuition in some aspects of sex and had acquired a certain level of confidence as a result. He assumed Kat was telling him this in the anticipation that they would eventually fuck, the thought of which sent a bolt of unadulterated lust straight to his balls. But he had to handle this properly, carefully, and the responsibility of it, like all things that Ivan felt responsible for, did not sit lightly on him. 

“So, tea or coffee?” He did not want to push this conversation with her, he could see it had been humiliating for her to say it. He would take a leaf from her own book and move on from it, as she had done for him several times now. A kindness. 

“Tea, please, but not that tar you like to drink. I’m freezing, so as long as it’s hot.” 

As Kat sipped her tea, Ivan stripped off his damp shirt to the drier t-shirt below and sat down with his own drink, feeling oddly shy again. 

“Tattoos?!” Kat exclaimed. “You have tattoos?” 

He glanced at his arms, where the larger of his tattoos were visible from under the edge of the short sleeves of his t-shirt. He didn’t think of them all that often, they were just there, like his skin. 

“Yes a few.” He grinned at her. “Do you want to see the rest of them?” He was chancing it here, but only for the sheer cheekiness of it. 

“Oh that old line,” said Kat, but her voice was low, quieter. “You cheeky bugger. Go on then.” 

Ivan kept his eyes on hers as he pulled off the t-shirt to reveal the rest of his tattoos. A network of ink across mainly his arms and shoulders, some starting to scroll down his back, all of which told a story of both drunken decisions and real meaning. He pointed to each one and explained to Kat what they were and where they came from, patiently twisting his body to and fro under her gaze to allow her a better view. Her eyes ran over each tattoo slowly, and he noticed her pupils darken, her lips part slightly as she reached out to stroke one which sat on his ribs, a Buddha toting an AK-47; that one was particularly ridiculous and particularly painful to have done, he remembered, even though he had been pissed as a newt. 

“I have a tattoo,” she admitted finally. “Just one.” 

“You never do,” chuckled Ivan. He waited for what he thought would come next. 

“I can show you?” She was very still next to him, seemingly still thinking over exactly what she was saying, even as it left her mouth. 

“Depends where it is, doesn’t it?” 

Ivan settled back in the sofa they were sharing. He would not push this, any of it, not yet. 

“My dress is wet through anyway,” Kat murmured and to Ivan's great delight, in one sudden fluid movement she drew it off over her head. Ivan drank her in; the porcelain gleam of her skin offset by the deep pink satin underwear she wore, a scrap of a bra and even less material which made up the knickers. Even the goosebumps which peppered her flesh were a wonder to Ivan. 

“It's here,” she whispered, her fingers drifting to her left hip, where a series of small stars spanned the curve of the bone. He let his eyes glide over her pale, flat stomach, the muscles moving slightly under the skin as she angled her hip towards him. 

“Mm, I see,” said Ivan quietly. “Very pretty.” Still he made no move to touch her, despite his dick now taking matters into its own balls and starting to harden rapidly. 

“You can touch it, if you want?” The beauty of her giving herself to him was almost overwhelming for Ivan. He reached for her hip, running his thumb over the sharp bone and pushing one side of her knickers slightly down to reveal the full set of black inked stars. He was aware of her shaking slightly under his hand and her breath was now coming quicker, her breasts moving against her ribs. His own heart rate had speeded up considerably and it took effort for him to keep his hand steady as he stroked her hip slowly. 

“Did it hurt?” 

“A bit, yes.” 

“You’re very cold, Kat.” Ivan took a chance, a leap of faith. “We could get into bed, to warm up?” 

“I think that’s a good idea.” 

So they did, Ivan stripped down to his own boxer shorts, Kat still in her bra and pants and folded themselves up against one another under the duvet as the rain battered incessantly against the window; almost instantly Kat hooked one leg over Ivan’s, her hands sliding down the length of his back, her mouth seeking his out. Ivan's own hands skimmed over the silk of her skin in return, pushing back her damp hair to press his lips hard against her neck, sucking the flesh there into his mouth. His hips nudged his hardened cock into the taut pressure at the juncture of her legs, still covered by her knickers with the resulting moan and writhe against him intoxicating. When he glanced at her, checking her reaction, Ivan felt he would remember every detail of her face in that moment, flushed and open, a pulse beating hard in her neck. Her hands began to push at the waistband of his shorts, dragging them down, her fingers becoming momentarily entangled in the elastic, bending a nail back. 

“Ow! Oh god sorry,” she breathed. 

“Kat... we don’t have to,” he began. “We can stop.” 

“No! I want to. Oh god I really want to, Ivan.” 

That was enough for Ivan, who kicked his shorts off and out of the bed in one motion then turned back to Kat to peel her knickers off, while she struggled out of her bra. It was a fumble of limbs which made them both pause and shake with laughter as the duvet got caught up in Kat's legs and Ivan accidentally hit himself in the face as he hauled Kat’s knickers out from under the covers. But finally when they were fully naked, Kat pulled Ivan against her once more, pushing her tongue into his mouth, her hands twisting in his hair. Ivan was certain he had never been as hard as he was now, his rigid cock crushed uncomfortably between them as they kissed sloppily, mouths wide and tongues sucking. 

“Open your legs Kat, I want to touch you... I won't hurt you.” 

When he dipped his finger into her, she was soaking wet, as wet as he'd ever felt a girl, spreading out to her inner thighs. Kat’s mouth, fastened onto his, bit down on his lip slightly as he pushed his finger a little further, and there was a sharp intake of her breath. 

“Relax, Kat. I won’t hurt you. Trust me.” 

“Ivan, wait! You should... wear a condom. I’m not on the pill. Do you have any?” 

“Oh shit. Yes, yes I will...hang on.” 

Ivan fumbled in the drawer of his bedside table for a condom and rolled it swiftly on under Kat's curious gaze. At first, Ivan just slid his cock against Kat as she lay back on the bed, knees bent and spread open for him to hold himself between them. He could see her face was tense, her lip caught tightly between her teeth, eyes slightly glassy, but as he rubbed himself up and down her without pushing it any further than that, she began to relax, her eyes fluttering closed when the head of his dick caught her clitoris in just the right way, little sighs and moans indicating he was in the right spot. The effort it was taking for him not to just plunge his cock deeply into her like he really wanted to was immense. 

“Kat, I need to...” 

“Yes Ivan, do it,” Kat panted and she clamped her hands onto his arse, spreading her legs wider for him. It did not stop a long, low hiss of pain escaping from her lips as Ivan pushed himself slowly into her, despite her slickness. 

“Oh fuck,” he grunted, the grip of her around him threatening to send him toppling over the edge before he had even started to move in her. Ivan stilled, allowing her to acclimatise and give himself some breathing space while he bowed his head to draw one of her sweet pink nipples into his mouth. He started a slow grind, barely pulling out and keeping their pelvises close together. Kat began to move in time with him, rotating her hips slightly to meet his shallow strokes, a sheen of sweat on her brow. 

“Is this ok Ivan?” she murmured as she opened her eyes to look at him; a keen, honest look which almost undid him, there and then. He gazed back at her, at her beautiful, trusting face. 

“Yes, _God_ , yes. You are fucking amazing Kat. You feel so good.” 

And then two things happened in quick succession – firstly, Ivan came, suddenly and abruptly, heat boiling up his spine. Secondly, he realised dimly that Kat had most definitely _not_ come as he stuttered to a stop inside her, panting heavily against her neck. _Shit._

So after Ivan pulled off the condom and disposed of it, he did what he thought was the right thing and gave Kat her first full orgasm with a man, using his fingers, which took some experimenting with pace and pressure, until she was shaking and heaving against him as his fingers stroked her firmly and steadily into a shivering heap, her hand gripping his shoulder and their eyes never leaving one another throughout. 

Afterwards they settled themselves in the bed together, Kat curled against him sleepily. Ivan ran his hand over her hair, still damp, and her arm fastened around his waist. 

“It’ll be better next time,” he whispered into her hair. “I will make it better for you.” 

Kat roused against him, lifting her hand to stroke his jaw. 

“No, no it was... it was just as it should be, Ivan.” 

Ivan knew without doubt that everything would be better for them. The trajectory would only ever be upwards as Ivan would not allow anything different.


	4. New Start, Old Habits.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan gets his break but Kat sees a side of him she has never witnessed before.

“Kat! You’ve _done_ it, haven’t you?! At last!” Meghan shrieked in mock-horror down the phone. “I can _tell.”_

Kat sighed deeply at her older sister’s ribbing of her and pulled a face of exasperation which Meghan would never see. She had phoned her sister to tell her about Ivan, it was true, but all Kat had managed to say was that she had met someone, before Meghan pounced. 

“Oh Meghan, fuck _off_!” But she couldn’t help grinning. 

“Swearing too?! You’re a woman of the world now aren’t you.” Meghan's silly infectious giggle almost set Kat off but she subdued it with a sharp: “Oh hush!” 

Meghan was two years older than Kat, cosily ensconced with a boyfriend called Matt, a medical student and keen rugby player, up in Aberdeen where Meghan was also studying Zoology. Kat had met him once or twice, a wonder of good breeding, better nutrition and the very best family connections. He was a product of the British private school system, brimming with self-confidence and more than a touch of glibness, in Kat's opinion. But he seemed to make her beloved big sister happy, so Kat was content to listen to Meghan's loved-up nonsense about him on a regular basis. However, Kat also knew what was coming next and felt herself bristling in anticipation. 

“So what's his name, what’s he studying, little sis? Spill.” 

Kat stalled, twirled the phone wire around her finger, knowing there was no real way for her to dress the information up. 

“He’s called Ivan. Not a student, he works.” 

Kat could almost hear the cogs in Meghan's head turning, processing the information. God, she loved her sister but she was like a bird of prey with defenceless woodland creatures at times, searching for the weak spot, the way past the armour. 

“ _Ivan_!? What kind of name is that? What does he do? Where did you meet him?” 

“It's a Welsh name. He’s Welsh. And he... er, works in construction. Met at the pub.” _Dry humped_ _him_ _in_ _a_ _beer garden_ _, pissed_ _._ _Slept with him on_ _the first date._ All the things Kat had not quite worked through herself, and that she was certainly not ready for the focussed laser beam of Meghan’s attention. 

“Uh huh. Ok. Construction? Hard hat, big boots, all that? Oh _Kat!_ _”_ Another shriek which had Kat holding the phone away from her ear and wincing. “Was it like The Full Monty?!” 

“For God's sake, Meghan!” she guffawed. “You’re ridiculous!” But Kat had a sudden flashback, to the sight of Ivan's body, with its lattice of ink over firm, defined muscles which certainly hadn't been obtained poring over books in a university library. Or even playing rugby. It was the body of someone who lifted heavy things for a living, and that was basically what he did. And the body of someone who marked himself with ink for a whole gamut of reasons from being drunk in Lanzarote to acknowledging his Celtic heritage. 

“So what’s this builder got which made my picky little sister go for him. _Ivan_ , sorry. What’s Ivan got apart from a big safety helmet.” 

“He’s hard-working. Good to talk to.” _Incredibly beautiful._ _Covered in tattoos._

“Boring! What else? What does he look like?” 

“Meghan, I’m late for a tutorial, I’ll tell you later. Say ‘Hi’ to Doctor Rugby from me.” 

“You cow... don’t you da-”. 

Kat put the phone down, laughing. 

What _did_ Ivan have? It was not something Kat had reflected deeply on as yet. She had not picked apart the elements in him which drew her to him. She knew he was incredibly physically attractive, and seemingly quite unaware of it. Disciplined and serious. Different from anyone in her social circles, either here in Birmingham or back home. But neither could Kat deny that the side to Ivan which he was clearly trying to suppress or hide from her was provocative. A challenge. She had been slightly horrified at her own reaction to his treatment of Kong, his sudden and brutal handling of the hapless idiot – hearing Ivan’s roughened accent in the alley he had bundled Kong into – well, Kat had felt excitement and a definite thrill. That sudden flare of temper which he’d channelled so quickly. Maybe this was why she had not thought so deeply about it - it troubled her. The cliched ‘bad boy' but ... not quite. At least her friend Helen was honest about her love of tough working lads and had no qualms about it being nothing but short-term fun for her, moving on from each encounter easily. Kat had more problems rolling with it; she’d had a notion about who her first time would be with and no, it was not Ivan Locke. Neither did she think she would move on from it, a tick in the box for ‘a bit of rough.’ Because she saw more, he _was_ more. 

And it was not that Kat regretted the sex. His gentleness and attentiveness, to be handled so carefully by him. The intensity of his attention, both physical and mental, was like a deluge Kat could not swim against. When she'd woken the next morning in his bed, with his body spooned against hers, she had lain for a while, and let the strangeness of being in this new state, in a new body almost, drift over her. The vague but definite ache between her legs, the burning tingle of her grazed nipples. Kat had not been precious about her virginity, never saw it as some rare gift to give, there had just not been anyone interesting enough. Or hot enough. No, Kat did not regret allowing her body to open to him, but there was still a formless niggle, something rattling at her brain, faint but persistent. Ivan stirred against her, his arm tightening across her chest where it lay heavily, his warm hand sliding down to her stomach. And with that, she wanted him again. 

“Are you OK?” His voice, sleepy and muffled behind her. 

“Mm, bit sore.” She felt him tense, his head lift from the pillow. 

“Where are you sore, Kat?” 

“The obvious place I suppose?” 

It felt like a conversation two better acquainted people should be having, despite the fact they had just, well ... Kat felt a slight creep of awkwardness. The night before was another blur of new experiences, the edges knocked off it by the wine Kat had drunk. They were both sober now in this half-lit room, with Kat’s knickers draped on the back of an Ikea chair and her bra half submerged in a mug of water on the bedside table, where she had tossed it. 

“I’m sorry Kat.” 

He was more alert now, turning onto his back, to look at her. His face was serious, despite the pillow crease down one cheek, his hair flattened on one side. He was still gorgeous, Kat contemplated, so very gorgeous. She dreaded to think what she must look like. 

“It's normal, surely, and at least I didn’t bleed. Must have been all those gymnastics I did growing up.” 

Kat could hear herself, blunt and pragmatic, her default state when feeling unsure of herself. She had never felt so tender and exposed as she did in that moment but then, miraculously, Ivan's arms were around her, pulling her to his side. 

“I was not disappointed,” he said, stroking the side of her head. “And if you are not too sore ...” 

It was altogether slower this time. Ivan rolled her gently onto her back; a measured exploration of touch and taste, his tongue lapping at her skin, progressing from her neck, to collarbones, and finally to tease her sensitive nipples. Kat reached for him, the velvety hardness of him, exploring the ridges of his shaft and the smooth head of his cock, rolling over and up on to her knees between his legs to gain better access. The heavy pull of lust made her feel almost drunk again and the world narrowed down to only the points where their bodies touched. 

“Shit... that feels good Kat. You can be... rougher with it, it’s OK.” 

But it didn’t seem to matter how she touched him or where, he shivered and moaned, his hips thrusting slightly to push his cock into her clenched hand. She ran her hands over his torso, tracing the muscles and sinews, the planes of his stomach shifting as she pressed a hand against it – she drank him in, his soft acquiescence, his patience as she explored him silently, his eyes following her movements. She didn’t linger for long on one part of him, greedy to map out his whole body with her fingertips. 

“Ride me, Kat,” he groaned eventually as her tongue was tracing the thick tendons of his neck. 

“We need a...” 

“In the drawer, you put it on me.” 

Kat supposed it could have been sexy, her putting on the condom, but actually it was a faff, the stupid thing pinging out of her hand, and then Kat struggling to place it correctly, her inexperience making her fumble it. In the end, Ivan had to intervene, smoothing it on quickly while they both giggled stupidly. Ivan propped himself up against the headboard of the bed and drew Kat onto his lap. 

“You control it Kat. You can take it slow...” 

So Kat slid herself onto him, breathing through the ghost of the sting from the last time he had been inside her, the new angle feeling quite different, deeper but allowing her to rub herself against him too. She became aware of his hands on her hips, gripping them as she moved against him, helping her to set a steady rhythm rising and falling on him. It felt so good and so overwhelming at the same time; the woody smell of Ivan, his soft grunts and moans as she moved on him, the thick feeling of him deeply rooted inside her, his tongue again seeking her breasts, a slight bite in his attention to them. Their movement, synchronised this time, made Kat feel powerful and wanted and entirely drowning in him. 

Then Ivan caught up her hand and pressed it down between them to the hot, wet place where their bodies met. 

“Touch yourself Kat. While we... It will help,” he panted. “Keep going.” His voice strained and his movements now stronger, thrusting up into her, his hands gripping her buttocks hard. 

Kat was familiar with the feeling of her orgasm start to build, slowly and surely, a fluttering ascent, but equally it was such a different sensation to have Ivan moving inside her as her fingers slipped over her clit – she could feel him under her hand, his girth sliding in and out, stretching and pushing her and it was this which drove her, trembling, into a climax which had her clinging to his neck, her thighs clenched around his hips. 

“Oh God, Ivan. That was...” 

“Jesus, don’t stop! Keep going Kat!” 

A few moments later, Ivan came with a deep groan and they clung to one another afterwards, laughing and kissing, panting against each other’s mouths, the sheets of the bed dragged half off and the duvet in a heap on the floor. 

“My bra!” snorted Kat, looking down at Ivan’s sweaty, radiant face. “Look at my bra! How did it end up there?” 

Kat did not return to her own house until almost the evening of the day after their first date. She had spent a whole twenty-four hours with Ivan and they’d had sex four times in total until Kat stopped herself and forced her mind and body back into reality and away from the tiny bedroom where all that existed for Kat was Ivan’s body, their lust and the increasingly wrecked bed. Ivan had walked her home, kissing her deeply outside the front door, and murmuring hoarsely into her ear: “Fuck, I want you again, Kat.” She’d watched him walk off into the dark; hoody pulled up, slightly bow-legged gait, looking like a complete thug but she wanted him again too. Kat didn’t think she'd stop wanting him ever again. 

“Jesus, Kat!” screeched Helen, when Kat tried to slink up to her room past the hubbub of the kitchen where her housemates were gathered. “Call off the search party, the dirty stop-out has returned!” 

“Yeah, sorry. I should have called.” 

“The Welsh pocket rocket was obviously worth it,” hooted Suzy. 

“Come on, come and replenish your energy with some food...” 

“No, no it’s fine. I’ve eaten.” 

Ivan had pulled on clothes at one point to go and get pizza and they'd crammed slices in, lying on the bed, just before they'd... 

“I bet you have,” said Helen. 

Kat had never been into the post mortems her friends liked to perform after nights out. Picking over the bones of who did what, where, when and why. And what were they wearing? She generally kept her own counsel, except perhaps with Meghan, and wasn’t about to start doing things differently now. _You’re a closed book_ _sometimes_ _, Katrina_ _Edwards._

“I’ve got some work to do. We'll catch up soon, promise.” 

Kat needed to sleep. She ached, despite the hot shower she had taken at Ivan's place. He had tried his best to persuade her to stay but Kat had a presentation to make on Monday, an assessment for a module she had almost finished and the work for it was not quite done. She would see him soon, she promised. Tomorrow, after the presentation was done. As soon as she possibly could. 

* * *

Ivan wondered if meeting Kat had been the beginning of a run of good luck for him. And Ivan did not even believe in luck. He could not remember a time when he'd ever had such feelings of contentedness; the conviction that things were going as they should be and he was, in fact, a person who was able to control his own destiny, rather than be buffeted about within his own life like a toy. Things felt _right._ He and Kat were inseparable, even though it had only been two weeks since that first night they had spent together. 

And now this, the chance of a job. A real job, with prospects and progression – a skill to become proficient at, to gain respect and maybe some level of stability, safe from being laid off from employment at short notice. The building industry in the UK was booming and Ivan intended to be a part of that bounty. 

“Don't let me down, lad,” the paternal tones of Frank Sykes, owner of Sykes & Co, father of fuckwit Limmy, were still ringing in Ivan’s ears as he fiddled with his tie. Ivan was waiting in the builders yard where he was due to meet Peter Johnson, another behemoth in the world of Birmingham construction, who was looking for someone to take on and put through a bricklaying apprenticeship. Frank Sykes had, miraculously, recommended Ivan. Finally, Ivan had his break. So here he was, in a cheap suit, speedily purchased that same day in Burtons menswear, and clutching a letter of recommendation hastily written by Frank. 

Frank, with his considerable stomach straining against the perennial Arran sweater he wore, had leaned towards Ivan as he handed him the envelope and said: 

“If you'd been my boy, I'd have trained you up months ago. But that’s not how it works, is it son? And that streak of piss that I created had to come first unfortunately. So you brush yourself up smart and get the fuck over to Pete’s place. Open that mouth of yours and tell that fat fuck why he needs _you_ on his team, right?” 

On his way out of the site office, Ivan bumped into Limmy, smoking by one of the portaloos. He gave Ivan a knowing look. 

“My old man told you then?” 

Ivan reacted in surprise, although on reflection, why wouldn’t Frank speak to his son about things like that? That’s what fathers were supposed to do, wasn't it? 

“Yeah, I’m just going to buy myself a suit. I have to go over there this afternoon.” 

Limmy nodded, crushing his cigarette out on the door of the toilet. 

“He nearly sent Kong instead, y'know. I told him he'd be mad to send that fucker over you. You might be Welsh and a bit boring, but you know your stuff.” 

“Oh yeah? Thanks. And fuck off.” 

Limmy laughed. 

“Meet me at The Prince Regent later and we’ll have a pint to celebrate. Around 4 o'clock? I bet this job is a fuckin’ shoo-in for you, Ivan.” 

“Hopefully I’ll not be drowning my sorrows.” Ivan knew he'd be more than ready for a drink either way. He was strangely touched by Limmy's support, graceless though it was. 

“Yeah, see you later, innovator.” Limmy waved a hand at Ivan. “Off you fuck, then. Knock 'em out.” 

Would Frank have given Kong the same ‘inspirational’ speech, Ivan wondered? _Wily old bastard_. But still, waiting outside the site office at Johnson's Construction, Ivan continued to run Frank’s words of encouragement through his mind. Maybe even more so than Kat's, who he'd called from a phone box down the road to tell her about his sudden opportunity. (“This is your chance, Ivan. You can do this.”) He looked down at the envelope and wondered how easily it might have been Kong’s name on the reference inside the envelope. _What even_ ** _was_** _Kong's full name?!_ He was the type of bloke who would go through his entire life known only by a nickname. _Like a loser._

Ivan closed his eyes and concentrated on running through the list of things he wanted to say: his ability to pick out details, to concentrate on a task in hand to the exclusion of any distractions around him. His ability to learn quickly – even at school they'd commented on it, perhaps the only positive thing to say for Ivan’s school years, beset with frequent fights and detentions as they were; he was a constant presence outside the headmaster’s office. 

_You need to_ _apply_ _that mind_ _of yours to your studies,_ _Ivan._ _You_ ** _have_** _got a brain in there._ Though he never had applied himself, except to avoid being caught truanting. 

But Ivan knew that when he set his mind to things he would doggedly see them to completion even if the world was burning down around him. _Just like your father,_ his mum had once said, _before the drink..._ a rare insight to the inherited quality of Locke persistence. It was a matter of where it was applied that made the distinction. 

Peter Johnson was another crusty, bluff old relic of the construction industry, who had worked his way up from odd jobs, to labouring, to being a roofer, to owning his own business and was now hurtling towards retirement, his body collapsing under it’s own weight. A fat spider at the centre of his hard spun web. 

“Frankie boy tells me you’re worth a punt. Is that right?” He had surveyed the letter grandly, breathing noisily through his mouth, his beady eyes darting between the note and Ivan, who was trying desperately to look collected yet interested. Ivan sat across from him in an office filled with old newspapers, empty drinks bottles and brick dust. 

“Yes, sir, I think I am. I...” 

“You'd need to do a day release at college twice a month. Fuck knows why, in my day you just learnt it all on the job. You can read and write can you?” 

“Yes, of course.” 

Peter glanced sharply at Ivan. 

“Don't look so insulted, I get all sorts turning up here looking for jobs. Welsh are you?” 

“Yes.” Ivan was not about to offer up precisely where in Wales he came from. It was not need to know information as far as Ivan was concerned and he was well aware that Merthyr Tydfil's reputation had spread its tendrils far beyond Wales. 

“One of my best gaffers was a Taff. Liked a song. You'd hear him up on the scaffolding in the morning, like the dawn fucking chorus. You Welsh like a bit of singing don’t you?” 

“Well, it’s not my...” Ivan frowned, politely searching for the correct response. 

“I’m messing with you, boyo,” Johnson said with the clueless confidence of a man who was used to people laughing at his bad jokes. “Right, you can start on Monday. You’ve made an effort, turned up in a suit. Frank thinks you’re good for it. That’s good enough for me.” 

And that was it. Ivan was ejected from the presence of Peter Johnson with a new future ahead of him. Just like that. 

“Told you, didn’t I?” said Limmy later, as they both started on their second pints in The Prince Regent. “He’s a bit of a wanker, is Pete Johnson, according to my dad, but he pays ok and once you’re in, you’re in.” 

Ivan found it was surprisingly pleasant to sit with Limmy in the dim pub, drinking the extremely strong local ale it served, still in his suit with the collar loosened, tie shoved in his pocket. Limmy was on good form, and Ivan felt relaxed in his company, for once. Mainly because he knew that if he saw him in future it would be through choice, not just proximity. He had also tried to call Kat earlier but there’d been no answer. Maybe he would finally be able to get himself a mobile phone now and he could call her from anywhere. Ivan felt light, again the feeling of being _contented,_ that all was right with the world. He took a deep, satisfied pull on the dark amber liquid in his glass, already feeling the effects of the first pint start to sing within his bloodstream. 

Later, another three pints down, Ivan began to realise that he was nearing the point when the night was in danger of running away from him – the tipping point of _do I go home, or do I carry on_. Sometimes it was not even a conscious thought and the choice was made without it even seeming a choice to Ivan. He’d barely eaten that day and the effects of almost five pints were sitting a little heavier than normal on his system. A little slower, a little more delayed. Some of the other lads from the site had joined them and it had almost turned into an impromptu leaving party for Ivan. But Ivan’s mind was turning away from the rowdy group he was at the centre of. He wanted to be with Kat now, with her but also in her. Their fucking was astounding as far as Ivan was concerned, felt like it was increasing in intensity each time they did it, Kat so open to him, her lithe body keeping pace with his every time. He could not get enough of her, or she of him it seemed. He pulled the suit jacket from the back of his chair and began to make his way out, despite the protestations of the raucous group of lads, where Limmy was now holding court. 

It was unusually quiet on the street outside, the atmosphere seemed to have a muffled quality as Ivan’s ears adjusted to the change. Maybe that was why Ivan did not hear the footsteps approach behind him, so when Kong landed a punch on the side of Ivan’s head which sent him soaring across the pavement into the gutter by the road, Ivan had never even heard, let alone saw him coming. He could only lie, slightly dazed, in the gritty puddle he had landed in as Kong hissed at him: “That fucking job was meant for _me,_ you little Welsh twat. Once I’ve kicked the crap out of you, you can fuck back off to Ponty-fucking-pridd, right!?” 

Ivan rolled into a ball as Kong drew back his foot and launched it at his ribs, the point of his heavy work boots cracking against Ivan’s torso. But Ivan managed to shoot his hand out and grab Kong’s ankle before his next kick made contact, yanking it hard to topple Kong onto the ground. He fell with a grunt, half on top of Ivan, who struggled out from under him on to all fours, panting. Ivan could not remember much of the next few minutes, was only aware of his own white-hot rage and the dull, meaty thumps of his own fists striking Kong rhythmically over and over. Although Kong was considerably bigger than Ivan, he was sluggish and no match for Ivan’s speed and ferocity, even while Ivan was drunk. And then abruptly, Ivan was being hauled back by the scruff of his neck like a dog and Limmy’s voice broke through the fog of Ivan’s fury. 

“He’s had enough, mate! Stop, Ivan! For fuck’s sake!” 

Ivan steadied himself against a wall, wiping the sweat away from his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He could feel blood pooling thickly in his mouth and spat it onto the ground. Kong lay in a heap, groaning, with Limmy bent over him. 

“I told him...,” panted Ivan. “Not to push me. He fucking did it again, didn’t he?” 

“You’re a pair of twats!” bellowed Limmy. “We’re supposed to be mates.” 

“He’s no fucking mate of mine.” Ivan snatched up his suit jacket from the ground, jabbing his finger towards them both. 

“Fuck you...” grunted Kong. 

Ivan was done with it, done with them all. He turned away and began an unsteady progress to find the nearest taxi rank – all he wanted now was to be with Kat. 

It took Ivan some time to find a taxi which would accept him in the state he was in. In the end, he had to pay double in advance before a driver reluctantly took him to Kat’s street to drop him outside the dark and silent house. 

“You’d’ve been better going to A & E, my friend,” said the driver as Ivan struggled out of the seat. 

“I’m fine, had worse,” muttered Ivan. But his head was throbbing and his face felt thick and swollen. 

He stumbled up to the front door and leaned heavily on the doorbell – his mind now just full of Kat, his intense need to be with her. Eventually, a light flicked on in the hall, and the door opened. 

“Kat, I’m...” 

But it was not Kat. Another girl with red curly hair, bundled up in a thick dressing gown, was peering suspiciously at him. 

“Who are you?” she said, closing the door over so it was only just ajar. 

“Ivan, I’m Ivan. Is Kat there? Please. Just get her.” He was done with being polite, being civilised.

“I’ll see if she wants to speak to you.” And then the door was snapped shut, the sound of a lock turning. Ivan waited for what felt like hours before the door was unbarred again, this time Kat, with the other girl behind her. 

"Oh god, Ivan, what’s happened to you!?” And then to the girl: “It’s fine Suzy, honestly, go back to bed...” 

“I’m fine, there was a... bit of a fight, but I’m ok. I just wanted to see you. I got the job Kat. I fucking got the job!” he laughed. 

If Ivan had been sober, he might have noticed the fright and uncertainty in Kat’s face. But he was not and he did not. 

“Let me in will you, Kat?” He stepped over the threshold. 

The door opened slowly.


	5. Ivan: Pushing The Envelope.

When Ivan woke the next morning in Kat’s bed, it was to find he was the only inhabitant of it. He lifted his pounding head gingerly, the throb of his brain felt like it was should be audible in the quiet room. He also noticed there was blood on the pillowcase; Ivan probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue, the metallic tang making him feel slightly nauseous. There was not a great deal of joined up memory for Ivan, between him arriving at Kat’s house to this current point in time. He peered at the alarm clock on the bedside table: 8am. Lifting the duvet, he saw that he had at least undressed … or maybe Kat had done it; he still had his boxer shorts on anyway. He was also bursting for a piss and this combined with his standard morning erection was creating some discomfort which he would have to urgently alleviate by visiting the toilet along the hall. 

Ivan’s attempt to sidle along the few steps between Kat’s bedroom and the toilet was decidedly hampered by his attempt to conceal the outline of his own stupid hard-on through his boxers and resulted in a crab-like shuffle with him facing the wall. _Please no-one_ _see me_ was the mantra he repeated until he was safely ensconced in the toilet with the door locked. Ivan’s ribcage was agony. There was dark purple bruising blooming across it from the left-hand side; there must be a cracked rib or two. He leaned heavily on the sink and peered into the mirror – the left-hand side of his face was also bruised and swollen, a spectacular black eye had formed overnight as well as a split through his eyebrow which was sticky with congealed blood. _For Fuck’s sake._ He was going to start his new job looking like a thug. _That complete and utter bastard, Kong._ Another sudden memory resurfaced in which Ivan realised he had not just drunk the demonically strong bitter the pub sold but had also had several ‘bomb shots’ - whiskeys dropped into his pints. Which would explain his mouth feeling as dry and barren as the Sahara desert. Altogether, he had not felt quite so shite in some time. The view of himself in the mirror and the considerable pain he was in worked well in subduing his erection and he managed to piss, brush his teeth with someone’s pink, glittery toothbrush and be back in Kat’s bed within ten minutes. 

However, it also now it occurred to Ivan: _where_ _the fuck_ _was Kat?_ His eyes drifted around the room. He had never actually been in it before, she always came to his flat – more privacy. There were a lot of books, and plants. Art posters on the wall, strings of fairy lights around the window frame, photos in frames dotted around. Ivan was unfortunately reminded of the slightly repressive atmosphere of his mother’s house – full of ... _stuff._ Everywhere, closing in. Ivan must have drifted off to sleep again because when he next opened his eyes, Kat was standing next to the bed, nudging him with her knee, and holding a mug in each hand. 

“I’ve just had the Spanish inquisition downstairs,” she huffed. “About you. About last night.” 

“Have you?” Ivan commented non-committally. He was not in the mood for soul-searching. 

“It was a bit scary, to see you in that mess. This mess,” she corrected herself, lightly touching his face after she put the mugs down. “God, you look even worse this morning.” 

“Yes and I’m sorry, Kat. It was ... unavoidable. It won’t happen again. I’m actually in fucking agony here.” He grimaced, reaching for the cup of tea she had set down on the bedside cabinet. 

“Let that be it, between you and Kong? Over with now?” 

He had obviously told her last night it was Kong. Another lost memory. 

She fumbled in a drawer and brought out a pack of painkillers, popping two out of the blister pack into her hand then holding them out to Ivan. 

“Of course. That’s it, Kat. I wouldn’t waste any more time on him.” He took the pills, washed down with a sip of the hot sugary tea and lay back on the bed with a groan. 

“You are an angel. An angel in ... a towelling robe.” 

He cast his eye over the thick robe she wore, slightly fraying and discoloured. Very different to the nightwear she brought to his flat; silky, delicate wisps of material, woven by spiders it seemed. Or nothing at all, more often. 

“What have you got on under there?” He snaked a hand under the hem of the robe. “Ah, some kind of furry ... pyjamas?” 

“Yes Ivan. Pyjamas.” 

“Hangovers tend to make me a bit horny, Kat.” He smiled lazily at her, despite the twinge that shot down the injured side of his face. 

“Well the sight of my battered boyfriend does not make _me_ horny. And it’s Tuesday; you have work, I have university.” 

They had caught one another’s eye at the word ‘boyfriend’ and now Kat looked faintly surprised at herself. 

“Boyfriend,” grinned Ivan. He felt his chest swell with pride, a deep pleasure in being afforded that title by Kat, finally. 

“Yes, the boyfriend I would like to introduce to my sister Meghan when she visits Birmingham on Saturday?” 

“Oh yeah? That sounds official. Meeting your sister.” 

Kat sat heavily on the bed with a sigh and ran her fingers through his hair; he leaned into her touch, almost involuntarily. 

“I want people to meet you. You’re going to look terrible though, aren’t you? Like a boxer after a fight.” 

“It’ll be OK. I would really like to meet your sister Kat.” 

Ivan felt like he had been handed the key to another world. 

By the time Saturday came around, Ivan’s face was less swollen, but retained the dirty yellow tinge of bruises only semi-healed. His ribs were still painful, and he’d barely managed to work, even after he trussed his chest up with bandages. He and Kong studiously avoided one another – Kong had not even appeared until the Thursday of that week and looked considerably worse than Ivan. It was, of course, the talk of the building site but Ivan didn’t care, he was out of there. He left on the Friday afternoon without a backward glance, it was already in the past as far as Ivan was concerned. He had a meeting with his girlfriend’s sister to contend with. 

It seemed Kat's sister was visiting with her boyfriend in tow; some guy called Matt who was studying to be a doctor. But no, Kat said, Ivan did not have to wear his suit for their meal in a reasonably smart restaurant in the city centre. Besides, it was ripped, wasn't it? And no, Kat could not sew. _Would_ not sew. So Ivan wore the second of his two shirts while Kat was beautiful in a pale blue dress. Again, Ivan had fortified himself with a couple of cans of lager before he called round for Kat and they took a taxi into town to the French style restaurant they were all meeting at. 

It turned out Kat’s sister Meghan was a shorter, blonder version of Kat. The same feline, sharp eyes as Kat’s ran over Ivan and he had the feeling of being searched, in the way a powerful torch illuminates dark corners. She would not miss a trick and Ivan felt a prickle of discomfort; the feeling he would be _found out_. There was also that same quality of barely repressed energy about her which Kat possessed, Ivan noted. After the niceties of introductions, Meghan wasted no time in exclaiming: “God! What happened to you?!” as her gaze swept over Ivan’s injuries. 

“Accident at work. It happens. Fell off some scaffolding, busted my rib up too.” The lie was out of his mouth before Kat could say anything, and he suspected it was a welcome deception. 

“Dangerous job you have, Ivan,” Meghan commented, fixing him with an assessing stare. Ivan, nodding, looked away. 

"Can be, I suppose," he muttered.

Meghan’s boyfriend, Matt, was less interesting to Ivan. Tall, fair and nondescript in a wealthy way, he was blandly handsome. Ivan had watched many of his type from afar while he’d waited to break into their cars back in Merthyr. Possessor of a painfully strong handshake, an ability to lead their group of four smoothly into the restaurant, and to have a bottle of wine on order before they had even sat down. A natural commander, leader... _whatever_. _Smooth, well-oiled._ Matt was clearly at home in expensive surroundings, whereas Ivan was crawling with self-consciousness, painfully aware of every glance directed at his discoloured face. 

However the chat was light, even though Ivan got the distinct impression that Meghan was holding herself back from asking him a lot more than she allowed herself to, something Ivan was grateful for

As the sisters talked between themselves, catching up on family gossip, a silence stretched between Ivan and Matt and Ivan was very aware that a sizing up was taking place, an attempt to assign Ivan to some kind of quantifying social position, most likely. 

“You must be into a bit of rugby, being from Wales?” said Matt pleasantly, taking a sip of his drink. They all had their food now, Ivan had forgotten what he’d ordered until it was presented in front of him. In all fairness, he had been more interested in getting more of the wine into himself; food tended to be an encumbrance to the effects of alcohol. 

“Yeah, and singing and sheep and leeks,” replied Ivan, deadpan, reeling off the list of things which could possibly be added to the cliché of his Welshness. There was a pause, Ivan saw concerned looks dart between Kat and Meghan – maybe he hadn’t quite got the tone of his voice right. Too bitter, too defensive. “Football is more my thing, Matt”, he added lightly. “I’ve started supporting Birmingham City, for my sins.” He picked up his own glass of wine and took a deep pull of it, smacking his lips before he put the glass down. 

“We didn’t get much of a choice in my family between football and rubgy – we're all rugger buggers I’m afraid," drawled Matt. "Practically forced to play it at school. It toughens you up though.” 

_Does it now,_ Ivan thought. _I doubt it._ He speared a piece of asparagus with his fork; not a vegetable he’d had much dealings with and it tasted like cat piss. Ivan had already noted that he was the only one who used his fork like a shovel – the others had the prongs of their forks facing downwards, always, prissily pushing small morsels of food onto it with their knives. Another thing he’d never been taught. Ivan cleared his throat and leaned forward to indicate towards the car parked outside that Meghan and Matt had arrived in. 

“That your car?” 

A safe subject hopefully. Just blokes chatting about motors. 

“Yeah it’s just a little Peugeot 205 my parents bought me to use as a run-around. It does ok. Do you drive Ivan?” 

“Ah yes. Yes I do. No car at the moment though. I’ve been lucky to drive all sorts in the past … er, at my last job. BMWs, Mercs, even a Bentley once,” he heard himself saying. W _hat the fuck?_ He knew he was skating on thin ice here but there was something about Matt’s casual confidence which rubbed Ivan up the wrong way. He was aware of Kat’s expression out of the corner of his eye: incredulous. 

“A Bentley!? Jesus, that must have been something! What was your last job - a chauffeur?!” laughed Matt. 

Even that irritated Ivan – the inference that he would never afford a nice car himself. _Or be bought one by Mummy and Daddy._

“I … delivered cars to people, which they had ordered.” He left it at that, and it seemed to satisfy them all. 

Matt had turned to Meghan. 

“Soamsey’s dad drives a Bentley,” he was saying. “Guzzles petrol apparently, but always caused a stir when he dropped him off at school in it – better than my dad’s boring old BMW.” 

Meghan and Kat laughed. Ivan was silent, but no-one seemed to notice. 

“Yeah what a bummer!” said Meghan sarcastically. “Puts our dad’s poor old Volvo to shame doesn’t it, Kit-Kat?” 

“I loved that rust bucket and there was always room in the back for the dogs; not sure our Sandy would behave in a BMW.” 

Ivan felt there was nothing he would like to do more, right at that moment, than to steal ‘Soamsey’s’ dad’s Bentley and push it off the edge of a cliff. His own dad was banned from driving, according to his mum. He had taken to riding about on a bicycle, pissed, after losing his car. His mum would look for it propped up outside various pubs around Merthyr, when he had done one of his disappearing acts. 

Ivan felt himself close over, a retreat into himself as the conversation continued in a similar vein. This was the world Kat came from, Ivan realised fully and painfully. She might not be quite up there with the Matts of this world, one car away from a Bentley, but she was certainly several steps, a country mile, in fact, away from Ivan; the last vehicle he had actually owned had been a shitty moped with an engine like a hairdryer. He had totalled it just before he came to Birmingham, on the road between Merthyr and Pontsticill, then wheeled it into a watery grave at the reservoir there. 

_A bit of rough._ That was how Kat had described Kong. What actually made Ivan different, apart from Ivan thinking it? On the surface of it, there wasn’t any difference, not really. The familiar burn of shame bubbled in his chest. _A bit of rough_ _.._ _._

Ivan downed the rest of his drink. He had lost interest in what they were talking about, what was the point anyway, he had nothing to contribute? And now he needed another drink. The polite chit chat, the clink of cutlery and general hubbub of the restaurant around them was like an irritant to Ivan. It made his skin itch. 

“More wine?” he said loudly, and held up the empty bottle at a passing waiter. “Another one of these please, mate.” 

They got through several bottles in the end, enough for Ivan not to wince when they all stood up to leave the restaurant – the pain from his ribs finally dulled by the combination of ibuprofen and alcohol; a winning formula it seemed. Ivan noticed Matt watching him as they walked out of the restaurant, there was a shrewdness there, despite his posh toff act. Ivan returned the look levelly. 

“Maybe you should get those ribs looked at,” Matt said finally, when they were all hovering outside the restaurant on the pavement. “You’re holding yourself badly.” There was a tense, awkward atmosphere. Something Ivan was more than familiar with. 

“Maybe you can drive me to hospital in the Bentley, Doctor?” Ivan did not bother to moderate his tone now. Matt nodded slowly, flicking the car key at the Peugeot to unlock it, but did not answer. This irked Ivan further. _What would it take to get a reaction from this cunt?_

“Don’t think you should be driving really, should you, mate?” said Ivan, jerking his head at the car. 

“I only had one glass. Maybe you didn’t notice. I’ve got a long drive in the morning, can’t do it with a hangover.” 

“Will we call it a night here then?” said Kat, brightly. “Maybe we can meet for breakfast tomorrow before you go, Megs?” 

Ivan noticed a look pass between the sisters again, a slight, tense shake of Kat’s head, the frown creasing Meghan’s forehead. But then Meghan and Matt had gone, the headlights of the car swept briefly over the pavement where Kat and Ivan stood. 

“Well, Matt is … rich, isn’t he?” commented Ivan. The fresh air was doing its usual job of combining with alcohol to enhance its effects greatly.

“I don’t really know, Ivan,” said Kat briskly. “Let’s go and find a taxi.” She began to walk off, her arms wrapped around herself. 

“Wait, Kat. C'mere... I haven’t spoken to you properly all night. Let me give you a hug.” 

Kat made an exasperated sound. 

“We’ve been sitting next to one another all evening, Ivan! Maybe if you hadn’t spent all night trying to get one over on Matt, we would have spoken more.” 

Ivan caught at Kat’s arm and drew her against his body, where she stood rigidly, arms still folded around herself. 

“C’mon Kat,” he breathed into her ear. “You’ve got to admit... he’s a bit of a wanker. Fucking Soamsey’s Bentley! What. A. _Cunt._ ” Ivan chuckled against her and finally felt a return squeeze of her arms, heard her own throaty laugh. It was a relief to be out of there, to speak freely, to _swear_. Probably more than he would have normally in front of Kat. Some kind of release valve had slid open. 

“Ivan! Well, he is a bit. I can’t tell Meghan that though. He once asked me where we kept our family’s holiday home, like everyone has one.” 

_Over-privileged_ _tosser_ _._

“Oh, the Jag? Just a little runaround Ma _ma_ and Pa _pa_ bought me,” mimicked Ivan, bitchily. Kat laughed in earnest now, shaking against him. And with that, Ivan felt his dick start to harden as the silken material of her dress rubbed against him. He backed her towards a wall and pushed his lips against hers, a deep, hard kiss, one hand under her denim jacket to grasp her breast. 

“I don’t think you’d like me as much if I spoke like him, would you, Kat?” he murmured against her mouth. “Maybe you like some rough edges?” 

“I like you just the way you are, Ivan.” She moved to catch his mouth with hers again but Ivan pulled his lips out of her reach and let his hand drift up to the back of Kat’s neck, twisting her hair into a loose grip in his fist, as his thumb stroked her nape. 

“Tell me what you like about me, Katrina?” he spoke slowly and softly into her ear. Ivan would show her what a bit of rough could do. “What you like me to do to you.” 

Alcohol, lust, irritation and resentment, a toxic mix which all contributed in varying degrees to Ivan’s stiffening cock but certainly detracted from his common sense, and he would have fucked her, hard, against the wall outside the restaurant if he could. But Kat squirmed out from his grasp, taking his hand and pulling him towards the queue of waiting taxis nearby. 

“Let’s get back to your flat and we can have a discussion about it there.” 

The taxi journey to Ivan's flat was a frenzy of kissing and groping which had Ivan feeling like he would explode if he was not inside Kat as soon as possible. He told her this, over and over, a litany of filth whispered into her ear as Kat writhed against him. When they finally got into Ivan’s flat, they both scrambled to undress, falling on to the bed together, a hot, sweaty tangle of limbs, fingers and mouths. 

“Get down on your hands and knees. On the floor,” said Ivan suddenly. A frown puckered Kat’s brow, just for a moment, but she did as he asked, turning her face away from him, her long, lithe form moving to assume the position below him which made him so hard it was painful. 

“Like this, you filth bucket?” she laughed 

“Fuck Kat, you look so fucking hot like that,” his voice was low and slightly hoarse as he stroked his cock, looking down at her “Do you want me inside you?” 

“Yes Ivan, do it.” 

He knelt behind her, running his hand down her back before dispatching a quick series of sharp smacks across her arse. Kat jerked and gasped. 

“Ivan, that hurt!” she stuttered in surprise. Ivan rubbed his hand gently over the spot he had slapped. 

“Good pain, Kat?” he asked slyly. “I can make it better?” 

“Just ...ouch!” Ivan had pushed himself roughly into her. 

“That’s it,” Ivan grunted, unaware of where he was finding the coarse phrases which were tumbling out of his mouth. “Take all of me in your cunt, Kat.” 

Ivan began slamming his hips against her arse, a rope of her hair he had caught up held firmly in one hand, as he pulled her head back and drew her body up into a graceful arc below him. The cheek of her arse was pink where he had delivered the slap, and he ran his free hand over it, pinching the reddened flesh hard. His right hand moved from its grip on her hair to a loose hold around her throat as he continued to pound himself against her. He could feel his hand tighten, the need to grip her harder, keep her still, keep her with him, building in him in conjunction with his orgasm. He was glad now, that he could not see her face, nor she his. This was not intimate, it was raw, rough sex that was pushing Ivan as high as he’d ever been. 

“Ivan, stop.” Kat’s voice was quiet, but clear. Delivered to Ivan like a bullet into his mind. “This feels weird. Stop now.” 

Ivan stuttered to a halt within her, his chest heaving. _What was he doing?_

 _“_ Ah what... what's wrong?” He had been so close to coming, it was still there, he could feel his cock twitch inside her. His hand dropped away from her neck and Kat inched away from him, his dick sliding out of her as she moved. He became slowly aware of the ache of his ribs, as the adrenaline started to drain away.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Kat repeated. She turned to him, her face flushed. 

_“_ Kat, I’m so sorry. I’m … are you hurt?” 

“I’m OK Ivan. It didn’t work for me though...” 

“It was too much, I’m sorry.” 

“Let’s just … do it normally?” 

“What, like Matt probably does?” 

With that, they were laughing, the strange interlude forgotten. The sex they went on to have was warm and loving, despite the itch that Ivan had unearthed in himself not _quite_ being scratched. He was sure with a bit of persuasion Kat might come round to the idea another time...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ivan is very well balanced - he has a chip on each shoulder ;)
> 
> And sorry about the boner killer at the end, folks. If you want to read what Grown Up Ivan is like when he fully lets himself go, as opposed to Baby Ivan trying and failing here, please go and read Wysi's fic, link at the start of this one. You won't be disappointed.


	6. New Commitments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivan meets Kat's family and makes some decisions about the future.

EARLY 1998 

Kat watched with pride as Ivan progressed through his apprenticeship rapidly. He was as dedicated a student at his minimal college work as he was at the manual side of his job. It was true that Kat had to help him with some of his spellings sometimes, but she tried to do it in an unobtrusive way – she discovered quickly that Ivan did not take well to anything he perceived as criticism. Which was quite a lot. He had developed a blank, stubborn expression when he felt he was being questioned. Additionally, he became expert at talking about bricks, the different types, where they were made and the respective merits and pitfalls of using them ... not a favourite subject for Kat. (“Save it for your brick geeks at college, Ivan!” which he had at least laughed at.) They had fallen into a routine of sorts over the last few months: regular nights together, always at Ivan’s flat, dates out to the cinema,(although he usually fell asleep in films, admittedly,) restaurants, the usual sorts of places. 

However, he refused to spend much time at Kat’s house. He was diffident and awkward around her housemates, uncomfortably shuffling past communal rooms instead of coming in. It was easier to spend more time at his flat. Ivan’s natural habitat was not around large groups of people, or even small groups of people. _People in general!_ thought Kat, with a mixture of exasperation and protectiveness. Except, inexplicably, at football matches, which he regularly attended with Limmy, returning home roaring drunk usually, adorned with an occasional black eye, or his Birmingham City FC football top ripped in some scuffle. Always the other blokes fault, or Limmy winding up the opposition fans, never Ivan.

“For God’s sake, Ivan, you’re too old to be a football hooligan!” Kat resented her own responsible, nagging tone even as she said it. But Ivan just shrugged and said it was part and parcel of being a football fan, a bag of frozen peas clamped to his swollen eye or jaw. 

“It won’t happen again Kat...” A statement Kat was starting to get used to hearing.

But the one time Ivan had persuaded her to go to a match with him, she had been shocked at the change in him: the feral yelling, veins popping on his neck, the chanting of songs, usually crude or full of unimaginative rhyming swear words. Aggression radiated out of him, unfettered, and he seemed completely, blissfully unaware. Kat had asked to go home at half time and he’d never asked her to go to a football match again. 

Still, Kat found when they were not together, she thought of him constantly, even if it was not conscious, he was always there, a static hum in her mind. She tried not to think of the sticking points. But they were _also_ there, perhaps more packed down. Passing notions, swiftly dismissed. It would take her sister Meghan to point things out, as she had done after their first meeting a few months ago. 

“Was he quite … _pissed_ , Kat?” she had enquired the next time they spoke on the phone after that night. “I think he drank most of that wine himself?” 

Although she had been able to explain it to Meghan that he was _nervous, wanted to make a good impression_ , even as Kat said it, she realised that, actually, he had not. _Not_ made a good impression. At all. He had been prickly and defensive, verbally aggressive and then... the sex, later that night, the roughness of Ivan... It had all been so weird. She had been glad Meghan could not see her face as she defended him; she would have ripped Kat to shreds instantly. She could almost _hear_ her asking more awkward questions, pushing, pushing as Meghan always did: _look harder, Kit-Kat, look deeper._

If Kat had been truly honest with herself, as she was sometimes about Ivan, she would had admitted he was a different person when he drank. When Kat drank, she became silly, more talkative, and maybe a bit preachy, but Ivan became … something darker. An intensity which seemed compulsive in him and Kat found difficult to manage. It was difficult to reconcile this with the growing trust and affection which was simultaneously blossoming between them: the times they would lie in bed together, fingers entwined, talking about nothing, faces so close they were just ... absorbing one another, like oxygen. Or Kat watching him breathe, the rise and fall of his chest, the pulse in his neck, listening to his wheezing laugh or the full-bodied guffaw it became when he found something particularly funny. She drank him in endlessly. 

Although Ivan was rarely playful, it had to be said. He was still the serious bloke that Kat could not get to open up about his earlier life, beyond vague statements about his mum back in Wales, and only if Kat really probed. There was weirdness there, no doubt about it. Yet he still listened, rapt, to Kat talking about her own family, their silly traditions, Sandy the dog who had grown old as Kat and her sisters grew up and who was still tottering about back in Wolverhampton. No, Ivan had never had pets, he said, wasn’t allowed, not even a poxy goldfish. There were no brothers or sisters to provide another view of Ivan the child (“I was a tearaway, Kat. A little thug.” was all she got), no real friends to tell Kat silly stories about Ivan. She had to piece him together, alone, like a jigsaw with no guiding picture and which changed its shape constantly. 

“Do you take after your mum or dad more?” Kat asked playfully. 

“Neither,” Ivan snapped. “I am my own man.” And his face took on the closed-down expression which was habitual. It would take some cajoling to get him out of that mood, Kat was starting to realise. 

“Mum says I have her eyes, my dad’s nose...” Kat ducked her head to catch Ivan’s eye, his gaze was directed pointedly at the TV from where they were curled up on the sofa in his flat. “And his ability to annoy people. But, then, they are divorced...” She ruffled his hair and saw his expression soften. 

“You’re not annoying Kat, not at all.” Ivan turned to her, putting down the can of lager he’d been drinking. “You are the only person in the world who _doesn’t_ fucking annoy me. I feel...” He paused, clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his neck. “... _better_ with you. A better person, you know?” He frowned, his eyes making some kind of desperate appeal to Kat. 

“You don’t need to be a...” she began. 

“No! I do. You have no idea. I do.” His voice was precise, definite. 

Ivan’s eyes turned again to the TV with a deep frown, and a distant, strained expression twisting his face slightly. Kat saw his struggle, her breath caught in the back of her throat, not knowing if or how to help him articulate what he was trying to say. What came next was still a surprise - because she thought she would never hear it from Ivan. 

“I love you, Kat,” Ivan said quietly – finally - after a few had moments passed, only the stupid gameshow on the TV burbling in the background. His whole frame seemed to slump slightly after he said it, and he exhaled deeply, but still couldn’t manage direct eye contact. Kat felt her chest swell with a returning love, burying herself against his torso, and clasping her arms around him tightly as his lips pressed onto the top of her head. 

“Ivan, I love you too... God, I love you so much.” 

Kat felt his laugh rumble in his chest and felt as close to him as she’d ever felt. 

But then, Kat would sometimes watch his face as he pondered over some calculation he was making in relation to his college work – the detached expression, the brain ticking over, his attention so completely focussed that nothing else was in his sphere. His self-containment was so complete at these times that Kat felt almost like a stranger to him – he didn’t hear her when she spoke to him, the crease between his brow deepening – she just wasn’t there. She would have to nudge him on the shoulder, the flicker of annoyance visible before he looked up at her. 

It seemed that sex was their best, most natural form of communication; getting to know one another’s bodies so thoroughly – Kat found she had a talent for making Ivan come explosively with a mixture of her mouth on him, and her fist clenched around him, working him fast and hard, his hand heavy on the back of her neck, careful never to push it, not to hold her too hard, but she still felt the coiled energy in his grip all the same. Or Kat spread open before Ivan, him crouched between her legs, his tongue flicking over her relentlessly as she writhed; him holding her down with his arms laid along each of her shaking thighs, keeping her pressed down into the bed, laughing against her as he teased her over and over to the brink of orgasm and back again, before finally murmuring hoarsely against her: “Come for me now, Katrina”, when she thought she wouldn’t be able to take any more. His meticulous, intense attention on her body was almost overwhelming and left her dizzy. 

But Kat could always take more from Ivan. 

* * *

Ivan was lying on a leather topped table in “Cursed Images”, the Tattoo parlour recommended by Limmy, tucked away, as they usually were, on a slightly grotty back street in Birmingham city centre. There was some kind of thrash metal playing on a CD player in the corner of the small studio but Ivan could still hear the laboured breathing of the guy who was bent over him, wiping down his left pectoral with antiseptic after he’d shaved any hair off from the same area. It had been a while since Ivan last had a tattoo and he had forgotten that it was quite as fucking painful as it was, literally like being punctured by a hundred tiny spears. It had been easy enough to decide on the design, just Kat's initials, in cursive script: KEE. Above his heart. Simple, something she would like, he hoped. As Ivan tried to tune out the insistent buzz of the needle, he cast his mind back over the events of the last couple of weeks. 

Firstly, Ivan had come across Kat crying in his bathroom, gulping back dry sobs as she clung to the edge of the sink. His brain had inevitably gone into shutdown and he'd only managed to stand and gawp stupidly at her, paralysed by the uncertainty of how to react. She turned her tear-streaked face to him and hiccupped out: “I wasn’t ... going to tell you... It’s so _stupid_!” 

Ivan stared blankly at her, wondering what on earth she was about to say, unease coldly creeping up his spine. 

“He was just... a _dog_. But Sandy's always been there!” 

_Fuck, the bloody dog was dead._ She wasn’t about to split up with him. Ivan couldn't help a tiny snort of derision which he instantly stifled. 

“Well, yes, but he was an old dog, from what you say, and that’s what happens eventually.” 

Ivan tried to aim for a sympathetic tone, but was sure he didn’t quite hit it. Kat must have known this was coming: an old dog dying? 

“Ivan!” Kat retorted, swiping at her eyes with some folded up toilet paper. “Sometimes you are just so _cold_!” She folded her arms against him, like a barrier, as he attempted to pull her into a hug. 

“Kat, I’m just relieved, that's all. That it’s not something worse. Your mum or one of your sisters. Actual family members?” 

“He _was_ part of our family.” Kat pushed past Ivan out of the small bathroom. “You really don't get it, do you?” 

That much was true, Ivan mused. The concept of family to Ivan was restricted to his mother, Carys. Her stifling care of him and her anxiety he would turn out just like his father. She had a sister or two in Cardiff, but there was some kind of estrangement which had never been fully explained to Ivan, and truthfully, he wasn’t that interested. There might even have been some cousins, fuck knows. And on his father’s side? Well, who knew there either? Ivan Senior might as well have hatched out of an egg. Families were fractured and problematic in Ivan’s experience. 

He’d had to work hard to get Kat back on side after his faux pas over the demise of Sandy the dog. A fumbled attempt to try and explain he didn’t really _get_ the idea of animals being part of a family which momentarily made things worse before he opted to just apologise, profusely. Part of his penance was agreeing to go with Kat to Wolverhampton – to visit her mum, check she was ok after losing the dog.Kat’s step dad was away on business and her mum and younger sister Carly were dealing with … whatever people dealt with after a family pet died. He was to go with Kat for the day, on the train, and then return alone while Kat stayed on at home for a week on a break from her Uni work. Her mum would not tolerate him staying overnight, Kat said. Ivan had a vision of some kind of battle-axe, in hair curlers and an apron, standing guard over her daughter’s chastity. Despite the fact that the night before, Ivan had fucked Kat quite thoroughly and comprehensively on the sofa in his flat, and Kat had agreed it was the hardest she’d come yet. Ivan smirked out of the train window, watching the dense city streets of Birmingham pass by, thinning out to give way to sparser, greener suburbs. 

At the train station, once they had reached Wolverhampton, Ivan had tried to persuade Kat to have a drink with him, in the station bar that hoved into his view like manna from heaven when they stepped onto the concourse. His nerves were again reaching fever pitch and he needed a drink to calm himself down. Just a pint, maybe. With a chaser of whiskey. But Kat refused. 

“That pub is a dive, Ivan. Plus, I told my mum we’d be there by 1o’clock, she’s doing a lunch and it’s 12.30 now.” 

So Ivan had to meet Kat’s mum entirely sober, and the thought of it made his guts churn. 

As it turned out, Sue Edwards was an entirely warm and welcoming presence in the large, detached house the taxi dropped Kat and Ivan off at. The first thing she did was pull Kat into a tight embrace, murmuring to Kat as she broke into sudden tears: 

“Oh love, he was such an old man and we gave him a wonderful life, didn’t we? The best life. He didn’t suffer for one moment at the end either. Not one moment” 

“He did have a good life, didn’t he Mum?” Kat’s voice was shaky, but she smiled, eyes bright with tears. 

“Of course, my darling.” 

Ivan stood rigidly behind Kat, holding the backpack she’d brought her clothes in, and staring at the ground in front of him. He recognised the gentle gift Sue gave her daughter, the belief that the dog had lived a good life – something he should have been better at, but the words just hadn’t come, not at the right time and Ivan was not good at platitudes in general. Now he was embarrassed in several ways at once. Kat finally turned to Ivan after drying her tears off with a hankie her mum gave her. 

“Mum, this is Ivan...” 

Ivan smiled and nodded his head at the woman who smiled back at him with a mouth not unlike Kat’s and dark hair also similar to hers, only slightly threaded with grey. But unlike Meghan, there was no sharpness in her regard, just an open, kind face. Ivan was relieved Meghan was not going to be around. Just the youngest sister, a teenager, according to Kat. 

“Ivan, it’s so lovely to meet you at last. Come on, come in both of you.” 

“Nice to meet you too, Mrs Edwards.” Ivan shifted the backpack from hand to hand, just for something to do. 

“Oh, it’s Sue, just Sue,” she called back over her shoulder as she pulled Kat into the house. “Let’s have a cup of tea.” 

Ivan was absorbed into the Edward’s family life without so much as a hiccup. He found himself helping to dish out food, adjusting oven temperatures, and juggling roast potatoes and jugs of gravy before he could even find his bearings. Kat and her mum had an easy, warm relationship – a bit of gentle nagging that Kat looked like she might have lost weight, perhaps, but all delivered with an easy, teasing humour rather than the brittle anxiety Ivan grew up with. 

There was a shy little sister, Carly, who lurked on the side-lines, plugged into her CD Walkman, shooting furtive glances at Ivan from behind her heavy fringe when she thought he wasn’t looking. She was quite unlike Kat and her sister and Ivan was reminded she had a different father; the absent Paul, Kat's step-father, away on undisclosed business. Kat's biological father, Terry, did not live locally and Ivan was equally relieved that he was therefore unlikely to suddenly drop in unannounced, or he be forced to go and meet him too. Ivan had a visceral fear of meeting any of the father figures in Kat's life, a deep dread he was only half aware of the reasons for, but certainly having the shit kicked out of him for putting his dick into Kat being the main one. Assuming, that is, they were handy with their fists and in possession of an arbitrary and sudden temper like his own father. Ivan caught Carly staring at him again from across the dining room table and looked away quickly. Currently, he was the only male in the house, even including the dearly departed Sandy, a male Labrador cross whippet Ivan had been shown multiple photos of; a dopey looking mutt who was now buried in the large garden behind the comfortable home he’d spent his life in. 

Sue was easy to talk to, like Kat. She asked Ivan questions but it didn’t feel like an inquisition. So Ivan didn’t feel ashamed to tell her he came from Merthyr Tydfil because there was no knowing look, just a brief comment that she knew it and even had a friend from another town nearby. Matter-of-fact, and no jokes about him being Welsh or even comments on his accent. He felt accepted for who he was and guilty at his earlier image of her as being some kind of harridan. 

“And you’re at college yourself Ivan?” she added as she dished out large slices of chocolate cake. 

“Well, only as part of my apprenticeship. Bricklaying... But hopefully I will progress to other skills and maybe become a site foreman eventually. Or another area. Construction is a large industry.” 

Sue listened, nodding, that same calming interest in what Ivan had to say which Kat possessed. 

“Sounds like you know your stuff and where you want to go, that’s a very good thing, Ivan.” 

He looked around himself, at the large comfortable house, with its double garage and driveway, its neat garden, the quiet, leafy streets which surrounded it, he saw how happy and relaxed Kat was in these surroundings, enfolded within the easy affectionate embrace of her family and Ivan realised that _this,_ this was what he would work for. To have this, himself, with Kat, one day. It was all that mattered. And it would obliterate everything that had gone before. 

Later, Ivan couldn't quite believe it when he found himself playing scrabble at the table with Kat, her sister and mum after he had helped to tidy away the lunch dishes. He’d been thrashed of course, his atrocious spelling had been impossible to hide and even Carly had beaten him by a clear 50 points, hooting with laughter when Ivan nudged her and pointed at the word “SHIT” he had laid out in the palm of his hand with the scrabble tiles. 

Saying goodbye to Kat was difficult, they would not see one another for a week, the longest they had been apart. They clung to each other outside the house, waiting for the taxi which would take Ivan back to the train station. 

“I think Carly has a crush on you,” laughed Kat. 

“Me? God, really? I don’t think someone her age...” Ivan stuttered, deeply embarrassed. 

“She’s 16, Ivan. I know what I was like at 16 and you'd be bait. I bet you were a randy little sod too.” She gave his arse a squeeze and Ivan felt bereft that he would not be naked with Kat for a whole week. And no, he thought, himself at 16 was not someone Kat would ever have tolerated. He would have more likely been scoping out ways to break into the garage he was now pushing Kat up against to kiss. 

“I will miss you Kat. Don't forget about me.” 

Ivan held the delicate blade of her jaw in his hand and tilted her face up to stare deeply into her eyes, trying to memorise the angles and curves of her face, pressing a soft kiss onto the end of her nose. 

“We'll speak on the phone, every day!” Kat said, as the taxi drew up the driveway. “And, listen, my mum likes you! Good work!” Kat made a goofy face and gave a thumbs up. 

In the end, Ivan had caught a later train, spent some time in the station bar; a couple of pints took the edge off his fear that Kat being away from him for so long would make her realise he was... wrong. Rough, boring, slow-witted. He would not lose her, he would do whatever it took to keep her with him. They would have the life together that he envisaged. 

Back in Birmingham, Ivan's tattoo tribute did not take long to complete; a couple of hours of thrash metal melting his brain and Darryl the tattooist quite literally breathing down Ivan's neck was worth it as far as he was concerned. It should be almost healed by the time Kat saw it, or at least semi-healed and beyond the initial ugly phase. As he was paying, a selection of leather necklaces draped over the side of the cash register caught Ivan’s eye and he lifted one with a silver disk pendant on it to examine it closer. 

“St Christopher,” intoned Darryl knowledgably in a thick brummie accent. “Patron saint of travellers. And little known fact, patron saint of toothache!” He gave the wheezy, congested laugh of a heavy smoker. 

_Toothache!_ Ivan laughed as he dropped the necklace over his head. “Is that so? I’ll take it, mate.” 

As he ran to catch the bus back to Perry Barr, he could feel the numb area, under the dressing, above his heart, where Kat's initials were now branded, and they were just as much a talisman as the silver pendant which also lay, cold, against his chest. It would all be ok, he told himself. 

Ivan's reunion with Kat came on a Saturday evening, a week and a day after they had last seen one another. They _had_ spoken on the phone daily, as Kat had promised, and Ivan had even tried to instigate a little phone sex, but Kat had got giggly about it, said she felt too self-conscious. 

“But my balls are fucking _blue_ , Kat!” Ivan had laughed, still pawing at his emerging erection through his track suit bottoms. Even her throaty chuckle turned him on and after they’d finished their phone-call he'd brought himself off, hard and quick, with a little bit of visual aid from one of his magazines. 

Seeing Kat in the flesh, vibrant and laughing at the door of his flat, her backpack clutched in her hand and her hair freshly cut, caused Ivan’s chest to swell with a feeling he now knew was love. His heart was pounding. He threw her bag into the corner of the hall and pulled her against him, relishing the feel and smell of her, fitting against his body, where she should be. 

“Ah Kat I’ve missed you. So much.” 

“I’ve missed you too, you look...” 

But Ivan had driven his lips against hers, pushing her backwards towards the bedroom, he could hardly wait to be inside her again, feel her body against his, properly. And he wouldn’t wait. 

“Kat, get those clothes off. I’m going to fuck you right now...” He dragged his own clothes off impatiently, almost forgetting about the tattoo. But Kat saw it instantly, and although the flesh around it was still a little reddened, there was no mistaking the lettering. Ivan was gratified at the way her mouth fell open a little, her pupils flaring darkly. 

“You did this for...” 

“Yeah, for you. Of course, Kat.” 

Her fingers lightly traced the black ink. 

“Ivan... I... I love it.” She had picked up the pendant and was turning it over in her hand. “And this too. So sexy.” 

Ivan was backing her up, slowly and steadily towards the bed. 

“Let’s look at it later, get on the bed now Kat.” His erection was almost instant and pressed insistently against her hip where she stood examining the additions to his body. She reached down and stroked him, hard, once, then dropped herself down onto the bed below him, naked and flushed, so he could look down at her, briefly anticipating what she would feel and taste like. 

“Come on then, Ivan...” She invited him with a hand running over her own hip and the other held out towards him. “I’m ready for you...” 

Ivan was on top of her like a storm, kissing and sucking at her neck in a frenzy, Kat sighing his name out sent more blood flooding straight to his painfully hard cock. But Ivan’s ears pricked up even more when he heard Kat moaning “Oh fuck, Ivan, yes” as his tongue travelled down her neck to her hardened nipples. Kat rarely swore, and never during sex. He paused and looked down at her, her head thrown to one side and her eyes screwed shut and he thought, even through the fog of his own lust, that he'd never seen her look so abandoned to herself. To him. He nipped at her jaw with his lips. 

“Look at me, Katrina...” 

His hand snaked between her thighs and down to the folds of her cunt. Her eyes snapped open and she turned her head, rapidly blinking, to look at him. He nodded. 

“That’s it.” 

He rubbed at her lightly, barely touching her at all as she writhed loosely against his hand, her legs falling open instantly. He held eye contact with her insistently as his middle finger teased her as delicately as he could manage, despite desperately wanting to just plunge himself into her. He would control this. 

“Ivan, I can't...” 

“Shhh,” he whispered. He tried to keep his voice gentle. “I love how wet you are for me and I just want to feel you on my fingers... oh Kat, you are so wet.” 

“Ivan...” there was almost a sob in her voice, he realised with a deep, dark thrill. 

“Do you want me in you, Kat?” he ventured, stopping his ministrations of her clit and holding his entire body a little apart from hers, waiting. 

“Yes, Ivan, for God’s sake, yes!” 

"Tell me, then," he murmurred, his lips brushing her ear.

"I want you in me. Fuck me, Ivan."

Ivan had never put a condom on as quickly as he did, yanking the drawer open so hard, a few of his condom supply jumped out onto the floor and he had to scrabble about ridiculously to find one. Once he'd rolled the condom on and pushed himself deeply into her, he was sure he wasn’t going to last long but found, surprisingly, that he managed to continue through several positions. Kat even allowed him to pound her fairly hard from behind, bracing himself with arms hooked under hers to keep her pushed back against him as tightly as possible, him bowed over her long spine. He had finally come, with gritted teeth and his hands gripping Kat’s thighs after she had finished herself on top of him, riding him almost languidly and leaning back to allow him to watch himself slide in and out of her. 

Afterwards, they had both lain back on the bed, panting, and both a little surprised at the intensity and vehemence of their fucking, it seemed to Ivan. 

“That was...” Kat breathed. 

“Yes,” said Ivan, his heart rate finally starting to slow and regulate itself. 

“I think I need some water.” Kat moved to get up from the bed. 

“No Kat I’ll get It, I need to get rid of this...” Ivan waved vaguely in the direction of the condom.

In the bathroom, it quickly became apparent that something was amiss. Ivan held his limp cock up to study the end of the condom before he removed it. There was a tear. Not a big one, his dick wasn't exactly hanging out of it, but there was a definite tear. Ivan stared at it for a few moments before he pulled it off, dropped it into the toilet and flushed it away. _What are the chances of..._ his brain reared away from that chain of thought. _Very little. A small percentage. There were so many conditions that had to be just right, for a woman to..._ Ivan decided it was not worth worrying about, or even mentioning. The condom was gone. He parcelled up the thought and delivered it swiftly to the furthermost regions of his brain. 

After washing his hands slowly, he padded out of the bathroom and into the kitchen to get Kat her glass of water, pausing to down a full glass himself, leaning against the sink with sweat still cooling between his shoulder blades. He forced his mind to remain blank, just for now. 

In his bedroom, Kat took the glass and sipped the water gratefully before wriggling under the covers and holding them open for Ivan. 

“All good Ivan?” she said, already looking sleepy. “I’m so happy to be with you again.” 

Ivan pulled Kat against him, tucked her head against his shoulder. 

“All good, Kat. Now you are back, everything will be ok.” 

Ivan held Kat tightly until she fell asleep. It took him longer, but sleep came eventually.


	7. I Never Sang For My Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OK this has been a long time coming. Lots of things got in the way of me finishing this fic but this is it: the last chapter. I'm sorry it took so long and I hope it is enjoyed, if anyone has stuck with it! Kat and Ivan are moving into their future with lots of plans - I will miss them.

Kat stared at the small, white tube of plastic in her hand. She was in the bathroom of her house, sitting on the lowered seat of the toilet – there was the sound of faraway singing: Helen in the kitchen, the last hiss and gurgle of the toilet cistern refilling after Kat had flushed it, some muted music from Suzy’s room along the hall. A bright shard of sunlight had penetrated the grubby glass of the window, where a peeling, ignored cleaning rota had been attached with sellotape a long time ago. All so banal, so normal and yet everything so vivid, seared onto Kat’s brain as her senses fired off wildly, desperately trying to distract her from what was there, blatantly, in front of her eyes; a faint blue cross in the small window of the pregnancy test she was holding in her hand. _Positive_. Kat was pregnant.

How _could_ she be? Kat had taken the test almost as a joke to herself, an experiment, even; a cosy, silly fantasy of having Ivan’s baby. Someday. Because she would not be pregnant, they always used condoms, every time. A late period was just that, a late period. Stress, or a bug, or _something_. But not a baby. The fantasy had dissipated as swiftly as the faint cross became increasingly bolder in its small square window. Kat shook her head, throat dry. This couldn’t be happening.

She choked out a short, bitter laugh. This was not _supposed_ to happen.

But as she thought back over the last few weeks, Kat realised there _had_ been other little signs, of course there had. A mysterious light bleed and cramps a couple of weeks ago. Intensely over-sensitive nipples which could not be put down to Ivan’s handling of them as she had banned him from touching them recently (and he had briefly got huffy about it). Kat wondered if she had been fooling herself or not; but then, she told herself sensibly, she had obviously never been pregnant before. How could she know it wasn’t all instant morning sickness and weird cravings for marmite coated bananas or whatever, but much subtler, much more insidious than that sometimes. Especially since she hadn’t been looking for the signs. How had this happened? What would Ivan do? Say? Shit, and _Meghan_! Her mind galloped between one scenario and the next. Oh, now she felt nauseous alright.

It would be easy for Kat to sit there, for hours, her brain firing off madly, but her pragmatic nature kicked in. Another test. She would take another test, to make sure and then she would talk to Ivan. Or should she tell Meghan first? Kat felt doubt and disloyalty drop into the already overloaded cauldron of her emotions. She was unsure how Ivan would react but was almost certain how Meghan would. Kat felt the first prickling of tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. She didn’t know if she needed Meghan’s brutal truths or just to be held by Ivan, his awkward loss of words always apparent when faced with the inconvenience of feelings.

Kat wrung out a flannel and pressed it over her face. She knew she didn’t really have to take another test; she knew it would only tell her the same thing - that she was carrying Ivan’s baby. Should she even call it a baby yet? Kat slipped the pregnancy test into the pocket of her jeans and unlocked the bathroom door. Back in her bedroom, Kat picked up her phone and dialled Meghan’s telephone number, sending a silent prayer out into the universe that she would answer, or maybe that she wouldn’t. She did.

‘Hellloooo...” came Meghan’s silly greeting. As always on the phone, Meghan sounded on the verge of a laugh. A lump rapidly formed in Kat’s throat. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had felt as carefree as Meghan sounded. She twisted the phone cord repeatedly around her finger.

“Meghan... it’s Kat.”

There was a short pause.

“What’s wrong?” Meghan’s voice, immediately and unintentionally clipped when she was concerned, was enough to tip Kat instantly into tears. Her voice was jagged and rough with emotion as she choked out:

“Oh Meghan, I’m in a mess.”

“Has he dumped you?”

Meghan’s fierce loyalty and anger virtually crackled down the phone line.

“No! No, it’s not that!”

“But it’s something to do with Ivan?”

Kat took a deep shuddering breath. She knew that Meghan would go for the jugular, would know straight away that it was related to Ivan.

“Yes. I don’t know how it happened Meghan...”

“Oh god,” Meghan breathed out and after a brief silence: “You’re pregnant.”

“Yes. I don’t know how...”

“You said that, Kat. It probably happened in the usual way - he put his dick in you without protection!”

Kat flinched, the first flare of anger at Meghan’s abrasive style kindling as she wrapped the phone line tighter around her hand, flesh pinched and white.

“No! No, we always use condoms... Oh god. How will I tell him?”

“Condoms fail, Kat. Split, come off. You haven’t told him yet? Ok, that’s...fine. Good. He might not need to know.”

“I’m definitely pregnant, Meghan, so he does need to know. I took two tests.” Kat frowned at herself in the mirror propped up on the table where she sat. Her face was white, eyes red and watery. Did she look different? Did she look like the stupid girl who got pregnant to her first boyfriend?

“If you keep it, Kat, he needs to know. If you don’t, he doesn’t.” It was that simple to Meghan, it seemed. Kat shook her head, the brutal and simple dichotomy of Meghan’s suggestion felt like a physical blow. Yet she heard the logic in it, couldn’t help but to hear it. “And why would you go on with a pregnancy now, Kat? You’re in your last year of uni, you have a life and career ahead of you.”

Finally, Kat snapped: “Who made you a pregnancy choices counsellor Meghan?! There are other options!” But Meghan’s words about condoms were echoing loudly. _Split, come off_. Would Ivan have known if that had happened? Surely? Kat’s inexperience felt like a wall she was butting her head against, and not for the first time.

“What are those other options, Kat?”

Meghan’s scepticism was palpable, a thick fog of disdain almost as audible as the faint buzz of the phoneline.

“I could have the baby and return to finish my degree later?” Kat didn’t mean to frame it as a question, but her own doubt came out regardless, in the tone of her voice; something her sister would pounce upon, mercilessly.

“Nice dream, Kat. When you wake up from that, tell me how you’ll go back to uni with a baby and a brickie for a partner earning a pittance? Oh Kat, _don’t_ throw it all away!” There was another pause and Kat heard Meghan give a deep sigh. “And he likes to _drink_ , Kat, doesn’t he?”

“When did you become such a snob, Meghan? We can’t all be Matt, born with a fucking silver spoon in our mouth, can we? Ivan won’t always be a brickie. I love him and he loves me.”

As Kat said the words, she also heard Ivan’s voice in her mind, an echo of his barely suppressed bitterness towards people he saw as having an unfair advantage in life.

“Well, crack on, because I’m sure love will keep you both going with shitty nappies and no sleep when you should be enjoying life.”

Kat felt another bout of tears fighting their way to the surface. She knew her sister could be harsh, but this was like being flayed alive. Kat wished there was some gentleness, just to cushion the blows a little; like her mum would undoubtedly provide. She could not even countenance how she might tell her mum.

“Meghan, can you just...”

“Can I just what, Katrina? Watch you make a huge mistake?

Kat paused, her throat painfully constricted. A faint voice drifted up from the downstairs hallway, Helen probably: “Kat! Ivan is here, I’ll send him up!”

Kat’s heart began to pound; this was it. Meghan was still speaking but the words were faint and indistinct as Kat listened for Ivan running up the stairs, two at a time, as he usually tackled steps.

“... I love you Kat, but you don’t need to do this...”

“Ivan is here, I need to go.”

“Kat, wait! THINK about this. Do NOT tell him yet, give yourself some breathing space...”

But she barely heard the words, her mind had turned to Ivan now, her heart felt like it would burst out of her chest. Kat put the phone receiver down, taking a few shaky, deep breaths as the door of the bedroom opened and Ivan bounded in. His face was lit up and he panted slightly; he had become so familiar to Kat, so solid and _there_. And yet she was still caught off-guard by his beauty, the scruff of his jaw, the thick muscle of his neck that she loved to bite and kiss, his own plump, pink lips curved into a grin which revealed his silly, crooked teeth. He leaned against her wall, slightly bent over as he caught his breath, the St Christopher’s hanging down in front of his grubby work t-shirt.

“It’s done, Kat!” He scooped her into a tight hug. “My apprenticeship is signed off. I am a time-served bricklayer. That old fart Johnson is going to keep me on and my wages’ll go up.”

Kat pressed her face against his warm chest, his voice rumbling in her ear, his own particular scent filling her nostrils; how comforting it had become to be held like this by him. Of course, he hadn’t noticed her bloodshot eyes, the dried tears streaked on her cheeks. Kat’s arms tightened around his torso. He was happy and proud of himself, his plans for his life and career starting to come to fruition and now … this. Kat was sobbing against his chest before she could even think about trying to stop the tears coming.

“Ivan, something terrible has happened.”

* * *

Of course, Ivan thought it was another dead family pet which had caused this reaction; what else could it be? Kat was prone to over-reaction and Ivan was fully confident he would calm her down, bring her round to being more _rational_. For a few moments, he just held Kat against himself as she heaved and hiccupped herself to silence, the wet warmth of her tears slowly spreading in a patch on his shirt. All the while, his brain was telling him: _don’t fuck it up this time, Ivan_.

“What’s all this, Kat? Come on now, it can’t be that bad.” The phone on the dresser behind them started to ring shrilly and to Ivan’s utter surprise, Kat reached for the cord and yanked it roughly from the wall, the phone clattering to the floor.

“Kat, stop! What’s going on?” He looked closer at her now – her swollen eyes, the way she was gnawing on her lip, avoiding his gaze. More than a dead dog, this time. _Fuck!_

“I’m pregnant, Ivan. I’m fucking pregnant!”

Ivan felt his guts contract with adrenaline almost instantly, a cold rinse of shock closing over his head like a riptide dragging him under. Almost as instantly, he was back in his bathroom a few weeks ago, watching the torn condom being sucked out of sight by the toilet flush. He closed his eyes, his brain flailing momentarily. This, _this_ was the thing he had pushed away, the thing he had denied would ever happen! Just as quickly, Ivan’s practical nature kicked in and he anchored himself to the rock of reason in the middle of the storm.

“Are you sure? You... you’ve taken a test? Seen a doctor?”

He kept his voice steady, one hand rubbing Kat’s tense shoulder gently. He wasn’t entirely sure of the process of confirming pregnancy but he would find out, just as soon as possible. Go through the correct channels. That was the first step.

“Two tests. No doctor yet. Ivan, we always used condoms, didn’t we? They were always OK, weren’t they, on properly and stuff?”

“Of course, Kat, of course. We’ve always used them.” Ivan kept his voice soft and low and hoped Kat would not notice the infinitesimal drop of his eyes from hers, or the tiny pause before he had answered her. It was true wasn’t it? Ivan was telling her the truth, they did always use condoms, he was just omitting the part about them always being OK. That wasn’t lying. And anyway, what did it matter how they had got here – they were here, and it must be dealt with, that was all.

“Then, how...” Kat began desperately. Her voice was hoarse and Ivan realised she must have been crying for a long time. Ivan ignored the tug of guilt which wrenched insistently at his conscience.

“I don’t know, Kat,” he murmured, pulling her against him again, so she could not see his face. “I have no idea. But it will be OK. We can manage this … situation. Come on, sit here...” Ivan’s arm was tight around Kat, as though to anchor her to him as they sat on her bed.

“It will be ok,” he repeated. And as he said it, he began to tell himself that it would, instead of just blankly saying the words. This was the start of the family he wanted, and how could it ever be with anyone other than Kat? He would make it ok, and he and Kat would have a baby together, of course they would. He would be the father his own father than never managed to be: solid and present, always. _The sins of the father would_ not _be visited on the son_. Something his mother liked to say, in a disappointed tone, when Ivan came home drunk or high, with bloodied lips or blacked eyes. Because people never would let him forget that he was Ivan Locke junior, the little prick who was as much of a waste of space as Locke senior, himself most likely pissed out of his head in some grotty pub two towns away, shacked up with another woman probably. That was not Ivan, never would be. He would prove it.

“What do we do, Ivan?”

He looked at her face, and saw the desperation there, for guidance, for someone to make her feel like there was plan.

“We need to confirm the... ah, pregnancy first. And then we think about what we need to do to have a baby.”

“Have a... ?”

“We can do this. I will support you, Kat.”

“Meghan said... I’m throwing away ...” Kat’s face contorted with a fresh bout of tears, her mouth twisted.

“Meghan knows?” Ivan interrupted sharply. He could see Meghan’s scornful, excoriating gaze upon him again, back in the restaurant that night. He felt his shame expand, a dark, hot, burning hole his chest, which was always there – he would have to keep that tamped down, the fire which could consume him. Something the Lockes were good at.

“She phoned, just as I found out.”

“Listen, Kat. Listen. It doesn’t involve her. This is our child. You want our child, don’t you?”

There were always choices, Ivan thought, some were bad and some good. Sometimes good choices came from bad situations, wasn't he proof of that? His whole life in Wales had been leading up to this, it would all have meant something in the end if he could persuade Kat that they would be a family and a success. He would never let this beautiful girl go, with her clear blue eyes and her infectious energy. A baby would be the glue which would bind them, forever; _their_ child.

“I don’t know, Ivan. I had plans for after university...”

“And you can still do it, Kat. You can. You will go back to it later. There's time, so much time Kat. I am going to earn more, we'll get a bigger flat, or a house. With a garden for our child to play in. This will work out.”

Ivan kept his voice steady, certain. He would be the ballast for them both, keeping them balanced and sure.

There was a short silence and Ivan could see the doubt in Kat's eyes. He would have to keep talking, keep persuading her and not let silences grow, to spread like a fungus where more doubt would form. He could not let this go because he knew if he did it would be the end of them...

“It's not that I wouldn’t _want_ to have a.. a baby with you, Ivan.”

Ivan could see that Kat was calmer now, starting to think things through. He felt cautious hope start to bubble up, it would be OK, he would make it OK.

“Yes, Kat. Yes, we would have eventually. We are supposed to be together and we’ll be a family. I am here Kat. I’m not going anywhere. We are strong and this will make us stronger.”

Ivan pressed his mouth to her cheekbone, the salt tang of her tears wet on his lips.

“We can do this,” he murmured against her face, his thumb caressing the nape of her neck. “It's you and me, Kat.”

“Ivan if we do this, I need you to ... to ...”

“I will. I _will_.”

Ivan recognised the nameless need in her, that she could barely put into words, that he would not abandon her. The vulnerability of throwing in her lot with him, when he knew he didn’t deserve her, in that crushed down place, which had sabotaged his life so often before, which clenched his hand round her throat when he was lost inside her body, which wanted to hold her down and possess her. He didn’t deserve Kat or happiness, but he was going to take it, with every fibre of his being. She had to know that abandoning her would mean he would be abandoning himself? But he could never say the words, they were always lost to him, swallowed down and then forgotten. And he would never, ever tell her about the condom.

“You will be the best mother, Kat, the very best.”

Other thoughts began to press in on him: telling his mother, Kat telling her parents; Ivan had not yet even met her father or step-father. Kat would have to go to Wales and meet his mother, at some point. There would be hospital visits, scans, people would look with pity at Kat and ask endless questions: “are you sure, you are both so young?” His mother would say “ah it happened this way with your father and me”, with a sad nod of her head. And what of Ivan senior? Would Ivan find him and tell him that he was to have a grandchild, and one he would never see, never be allowed to pollute with his indifference. Would Ivan seek him out just to rub that bitterness into his face? And at the end of it all: a baby! A fucking baby!

An hour before, Ivan had been with Limmy; a chaste, single pint in The Punch Bowl to celebrate the completion of his apprenticeship before he came to tell Kat. A comfortably male conversation about what car Ivan might buy (he had his eye on second-hand Audi), arrangements made to attend a football match together in a fortnight, gossip about Kong, who had finally been sacked and got himself arrested after a coke binge which culminated in him kicking in the window at a kebab shop. A world away, a whole world away now.

A sudden, ragged thirst hit Ivan – not just thirst, but craving; for the dark interior of a quiet pub, pint after pint of cool, amber liquid which would slip down his throat. Alone. No Limmy, no Kat, even. Just some old boy on the adjacent table, perhaps, sipping his own pint and making a benign comment about the football match which would be rumbling dimly from the TV in the corner. Maybe a game on a fruit machine, feeding in coins mindlessly, the dials and buttons on the machine flashing and rotating endlessly; popping in his brain even as the booze began to numb it. Ivan desperately wanted to escape, but this time he was denied a route out via alcohol. His mind turned to the other place he sought out in the times he wanted to leave his clamouring thoughts behind; Kat, her body, the sex which connected them even when other things pushed them apart.

Ivan pulled himself back into the moment, where Kat was leaning against him quietly, a warm, distant presence lost in her own thoughts. He manoeuvred them both fully onto the bed, his thumb continuing its gentle slide over the skin of her shoulder, then down for his hand to cup her breast over her clothes. He knew he was trying his luck here, as he rolled her nipple between his fingers, but lust was starting to pool in his stomach, his dully thudding heart already pumping blood downward to where his cock began to stir.

“Ivan...”

Kat’s tone was unreadable, to Ivan at least, and he turned his head to catch her eye. A slight frown had darkened her face, though she did not stop him from rolling her onto her back and nestling himself between her legs, where he had slowly parted them, nudging himself into place, his hips flush against hers.

“Let me show you, Kat. How much I … love you.”

She was silent and turned her head away, eyes closing.

“No, Kat. Look at me.” He pulled her head back and she stared at him for what felt like forever: a keen, sharp gaze.

Finally, her voice dark and deep and cool, she said: “Show me then.”

So Ivan silently stripped her clothes off, pausing here and there to draw his tongue along the long plane of her neck or over the shivering rise of her stomach, his mind briefly flashing to the life he had put in there, where it was flickering now - such a tiny, vital spark. He could feel her softening against him, her mouth seeking his and pulling his lips against her own, their tongues yielding and touching softly at first. Soon Ivan himself was naked, a swift, compact removal of his clothes as Kat watched, lying on her side, and then he was on her again, her thighs spread open in front of him where he sucked and kissed the thin skin in just the spot he knew made her legs shake before nosing his way further up, his hands holding her hips steady so he could drink from her, his tongue languidly drawing out her sweet essence, as her fingers clenched hard around his head. Ivan knew now the exact depth and pressure to exert and for how long before extracting the tell-tale whine that she was close to coming; such a long way from those early fumbled days, he had learned her body like a precious map. Drawing her orgasm out was easy now, a series of steady climbs and sudden falls, and he loved watching her face twist and grimace almost as though she was in pain until he finally let her plummet, holding her firmly against the onslaught of his mouth, his dick pressed painfully hard up against the mattress beneath him.

Ivan waited for Kat to catch her breath before he nudged himself slowly inside her and held still there for a moment, as they caught each other’s eye. She felt tight and hot and so very close. The sensation was glorious and Ivan could not help a sudden groan escaping, his head bowing momentarily against her shoulder, as he let the pleasure trickle down his spine.

“No condom,” murmured Kat, a small smile on her lips.

“Ah Kat, you feel so...so fucking good,” Ivan managed to say, as he began to rock himself inside her tight grip. He wanted her to come against him again, but also to never stop the slick movement of his body against hers, the deep dive into her which emptied his head of all bad thoughts and kept him utterly in the moment with Kat. Ivan only allowed himself to come once Kat had again, writhing and moaning under him as he held his thumb against her clit. His own pleasure followed on the back of hers, the familiar buzz creeping, slowly at first, up his spine as he lifted his head to look at her, her eyes bright and shining with love, only losing rhythm for a second, hips faltering as Kat breathed at him: “Now, Ivan.” And he let himself go, spilling himself fully into her, spasm after spasm of ecstasy.

Afterwards, Ivan would not allow Kat to climb under the covers, he wanted to look at every part of her, her skin scattered with the flush of their effort. He wanted to skim his hand over her abdomen, upwards around her delicate ribcage, a gentle drag of fingertips across her sensitive breasts, to watch the nipples pucker and redden; he wanted his hands to worship her in the way he knew his words always fell short.

No, he would not lose her now. She needed him more than ever. Almost as much as he needed her.

“Ivan, I love you,” she said.

“And I love you, but get some sleep now.”

As he listened to Kat’s breathing even out and deepen, Ivan thought of the frenetic weeks and months which would undoubtedly follow, a blur of appointments, which he would have to try his best to be present at, both bodily and mentally. To ask questions, to understand and neatly assimilate the strange, messy mechanics of pregnancy and birth which Kat would have to go through. The navigation of a completely new, perhaps hostile, landscape. Ivan knew there was more work to be done to fully persuade her they could do this, could survive and even thrive, together. But he would be the success where his father had failed and Ivan’s child would grow up knowing what a real father was. His child would know a father who would get its birthday correct, would know what its interest were and his child would have two parents, together. It was Ivan’s right to prove this, that he was not and never would be his father; to himself, to his mother, to every shitty drinking partner of Ivan Senior’s who thought the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Ivan would take the steps necessary to finally and fully turn his life around. The hope which had swelled in his chest earlier now bloomed fully into joy, such a foreign sensation. Ivan felt his mouth relax, finally, into a smile.

He turned to Kat, her sleeping face relaxed and gentle, and pushed the damp hair off her hot brow, pressing his lips there instead. It was all here, his world was all here in this bed, in this shitty student house, in this girl. He would be there, steady and solid, as their child came into the world. Things would never be the same again. But Ivan Locke would be there, just as he promised he would.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Some translations for the British terms in this fic ;)
> 
> "Pavement Pizza" - pools of vomit found in every doorway and every gutter in most UK towns after a Saturday night. Particular favourite breakfast for seagulls in seaside locations.
> 
> "Dirty stopout" - one night stand, as in "oooh Ivan had a dirty stopout last night, snuck out of her window at 5am."
> 
> "Ivor The Engine" - seminal British children's tv animation about the adventures of a small, green Welsh steam train called Ivor.
> 
> 'Bookies' - a betting shop.


End file.
